THE CANKER
Cable saw Bansemer leave the house as he drove up to the curb in
front. The lawyer did not look back, but turned the nearest corner
as if eager to disappear from sight as quickly as possible.
Closing the door of his smoking-room behind him, David Cable dropped
wearily into a chair without removing his hat or coat. His blood
was running cold through his veins, his jaw was set and his eyes
had the appearance of one who has been dazed by a blow. For many
minutes he sat and stared at the andirons in the ember-lit grate.
From time to time he swallowed painfully and his jaw twitched.
Things began growing black and green before his eyes; he started
up with an oath.
He was consumed by the fires of jealousy and suspicion. The doubt
that had found lodging in his mind so recently now became a cruel
certainty. Into his grim heart sprang the rage of the man who
finds himself deceived, despised, dishonoured. He was seeing with
his own eyes, no doubt, just what others had seen for months--had
seen and had pitied or scorned him as the unfortunate dupe. With
the thought of it he actually ground his teeth; tears of rage and
mortification sprang to his eyes. He recalled his own feelings in
instances where shame had fallen upon other men; he recalled his
own easy indifference and the temptation to laugh at the plight
of the poor devils. It had never entered his mind that some day he
might be the object of like consideration in others more or less
fortunate, according to THEIR friends.
By the time dinner was announced he had succeeded in restoring
himself to a state of comparative calmness. He did not dress for
dinner, as was his custom, nor did he stop to ask Frances Cable if
she were ready to go down. He heard Jane playing the piano as he
descended. She nodded to him, but did not stop and he paused near
the fireplace to look at her strangely. Somewhere back in his brain
there was struggling, unknown to him, the old-time thought that
this child bore him no likeness whatsoever. He only knew he was
crushing down the fear that evil or slander or pain might come to
her, if he were rash yet just. He was wondering if he could face
his wife without betraying himself.
Jane played softly, lifelessly. She, on the other hand, was wondering
what Graydon would think or say, if she spoke to him of what she
had seen. She wondered if he would blame her mother as she was
beginning to blame his father.
"Mother won't be down to dinner," she finally said.
"Is she ill?" he asked after a moment.
"She is lying down. Margaret will take some tea up to her."
Father and daughter had but little to say to each other during the
meal. Their efforts at conversation were perfunctory, commonplace,
an unusual state of affairs of which neither took notice.
"You look tired, father. Has it been a hard day?"
"A rather trying one, Jane. We're having some trouble with the
blizzards out West. Tying up everything that we are rushing to the
Philippines."
"Is it settled that you are to be made president?"
"It looks like it." There followed a long silence. "By the way,
I have good news for you. Mr. Clegg told me to-day that they are
going to take Graydon into the firm. Isn't it great? Really, it is
quite remarkable. You are not the only person, it seems, who thinks
a lot of that boy."
"A partner? Really? Oh, isn't it glorious? I knew he could--I told
him he'd be a partner before long." She waited a moment and then
added: "His father was here to-day for a cup of tea." Cable caught
the slightly altered tone and looked up. She was trifling with her
fork, palpably preoccupied.
"I'm--I'm sorry I missed him," said he, watching her closely.
"You like him very much, don't you, father?"
"Certainly--and I'm sure your mother does." The fork shook in her
fingers and then dropped upon the plate. She looked up in confusion.
Cable's eyes were bent upon her intently and she had never seen so
queer a light in them. Scarcely more than the fraction of a second
passed before he lowered his gaze, but the mysterious telegraphy
of the mind had shot the message of comprehension from one to the
other. He saw with horror that the girl at least suspected the true
situation. A moment later he arose abruptly and announced that he
would run up to see her mother before settling down to some important
work in his den.
"Graydon is coming over to-night," she said. "We'll be very quiet
and try not to disturb you. Don't work too hard, daddy dear."
Upstairs Frances Cable was battling with herself in supreme despair.
Confession was on her lips a dozen times, but courage failed her.
When she heard his footsteps in the hallway she was ready to cry
out the truth to him and end the suspense. As he opened the door
to enter, the spirit of fairness turned frail and fled before the
appeal of procrastination. Wait! Wait! Wait! cried the powerful
weakness in her heart, and it conquered. She could not tell him
then. To-morrow--the next day, yes, but not then. It was too much
to demand of herself, after all.
He came in, but left a few minutes later. She was strangely
unresponsive to his tender inquiries. Her thoughts were of another,
was his quick conclusion as he fled from her presence before the
harsh accusations could break from his eyes.
In his den once more, with the door closed, he gave himself up
completely to black thoughts. He recalled his words to her, uttered
years ago, half in jest and half in earnest; he had horrified her
beyond expression by telling her how he would punish a wife if he
were the husband she deceived. With a grim, lurid smile he remembered
the penalty. He had said he would not kill; he would disfigure the
woman frightfully and permit her to live as a moral example to
other wives. Slitting her mouth from ear to ear or cutting off her
nose--these were two of the penalties he would inflict. He now felt
less brutal. He might kill, but he would not disfigure. For an hour
he sat and wondered what had been the feelings of his old friend
George Driscoll just before he deliberately slew his faithless wife.
He remembered saying to other friends at the time that Driscoll
had "done right."
This night of black shadows--he did not sleep at all--was really
the beginning of the end. He forgot the presidency that was to be
handed out to him; he forgot everything but the horrid canker that
gnawed into his heart and brain.
Day and night he writhed in silent agony, a prey to the savage
jealousy that grew and grew until it absorbed all other emotions.
Scandal, divorce, dishonour, murder swept before the mind of this
man who had been of the people and who could not condone. The people
kill.
For a week he waited and watched and suffered. What he knew of men
told him that they do not devote themselves to the wives of others
with honourable motives behind them. He convinced himself that he
knew the world; he had seen so much of it. The man aged years in
that single week of jealousy and suspense. His face went haggard,
his eyes took on a strange gleam, his manner was that of a man in
grave trouble.
Day after day this piteous, frenzied man who swayed thousands with
his hand stooped to deal with the smallest movements of one man and
one woman. Despite his most intense desire to drive himself into
other and higher channels, he found himself skulking and spying
and conniving with but one low end in view.
He employed every acute sense in the effort to justify his
suspicions. Time and again he went home at unusual hours, fearing
all the while that he might incur the pain of finding Bansemer
there. He even visited the man in his office, always rejoicing in
the fact that he found him there at the time. He watched the mail
in the morning; he planned to go out of nights and then hurried
home deliberately but unexpectedly. Through it all he said no word
to Frances Cable or Jane. He asked no questions, but he was being
beaten down by apprehensions all the while.
His wife's manner convinced him that all was not well with her. She
avoided being alone with him, keeping close to her room; he detected
a hundred pretexts by which she managed to escape his simplest
advances.
At last, overwrought by the strain, he began to resort to
cunning--this man who was big enough to have gone from the engine
cab to the president's office. It required hours of struggle with
his fairer, nobler nature to bring himself low enough to do trickery,
but the natal influence mastered. He despised himself for the trick,
but he WOULD KNOW THE TRUTH.
The late afternoon mail one day brought to Mrs. Cable a brief
letter, typewritten both inside and out. David Cable saw her open
and read the missive and he saw her trembling hand go to her throat
and then to her temple. Her back was towards him. He could not see
her face until she turned, a full minute later. Then it was calm
and undisturbed, but her eyes were brilliant. He ground his teeth
and tore upstairs without a word. David Cable had stooped low enough
to write this letter and he was paying for it.
He knew the contents far better than she knew them. The letter
purported to be an urgent appeal from James Bansemer, asking her
to meet him at eight o'clock that night. It said: "I must see you
to-night. Leave your home at 8:00 o'clock for a short call on Mrs.
W--, just around the corner. I will meet you across the Drive, near
the sea wall. It is quite dark there. J."
David Cable did not know that earlier in the afternoon James Bansemer
had called her up by 'phone to say that he intended to speak to
his son the following day, unless word came to him from her; nor,
could he have possibly known that she was now determined to tell
the whole story to her husband and to trust to his mercy. He only
knew that he had written the letter and that he had told her of
his intention to go downtown immediately after dinner.