DEEPER STILL
Harriet Sponley dressed for dinner that evening with more than usual
care. She liked to dress well, partly for her own sake, and partly
because her husband appreciated it. But to-night she seemed able to
find little satisfaction in the result of her efforts.
“Your gown is very beautiful,” the maid ventured timidly.
Harriet nodded indifferently; then, as with a gesture of impatience,
she turned away from the long mirror, her eyes fell upon the neat
figure and the fresh face of her girlish attendant. She looked at
her so long and so hard that the girl flushed and averted her eyes
uneasily. Harriet smiled and patted her shoulder.
“I’m very glad you like it,” she said kindly. “Now run along, I shan’t
want you any more.”
She liked her maid. She petted her, and--so Sponley said--indulged her
most outrageously. It was an old weakness of Harriet’s--this fondness
for a pretty face. It had been the source of her affection for Alice
Blair.
As the girl left the room, Harriet dropped upon the little round chair
which stood before her dressing table, and resting her elbows on the
table, she leaned forward and stared disapprovingly into the small
glass which hung above it. The strong, unpitying light which the two
incandescent lamps threw upon her face revealed many things she did not
wish to see there. What a jaded face it was! And the lines were deeper
than they had ever been before. She rubbed her forehead nervously,
almost roughly, with her finger tips, as though that would erase them.
The day had been peculiarly trying for Harriet. In these later years,
every flurry on the Board of Trade, every sudden turn in the stock
market, had given her two or three almost intolerable hours; but
to-night the slump in lard was not in her thoughts at all. When she
had called Sponley’s attention to the story in the morning paper of
Pickering’s prospective corner, he had disposed of the matter with a
glance and a nod. Then on her suggesting that he had known all about
it before, he had replied in the negative. He was holding quite a line
of lard himself, he said; but with this rumor of a deal of Pickering’s
he had no concern.
Five years ago--one year ago--the smallest doubt of his truthfulness
could not have occurred to her; she knew he would have lied to
himself as soon as to her. She remembered how he used to come home
brimming over with the day’s experiences, how eagerly he had related
and explained it all, and how confidently they had planned out their
to-morrows. He used to tell her then that she was the mind of the firm;
that what she didn’t think of herself she made him think of; that she
was the one, big reason for his remarkable success. And he had meant
it, too; she was sure of that. But as time had gone by, his confidences
had been growing less spontaneous. The change had been slow, so slow
that she could see it only by looking back, but it was unmistakable. He
never told her anything now unless she asked for it. And to-day he had
lied to her! She had only herself to blame for it. When she had ceased
to be able to help him, he no longer looked to her for help. She was an
outsider now; that was why he had lied to her.
She looked intently at the face in the glass. “He will see to-night--he
will surely see what a miserable wreck this old woman is,” and with
that she rose and went down to the library where he was awaiting her.
The afterglow from splendid masses of cloud high up the sky made a soft
twilight in the room; but to Harriet’s eyes, blinded by the glare to
which they had been subjected, it was quite dark. She did not at first
see Sponley, who was standing in the shadow.
“You almost startle me sometimes,” he said, “by taking me back twenty
years or so. I have to think of myself to realize that we aren’t
youngsters again.”
“It must be the gown,” she answered. “I’m glad you like it.”
She walked to the window and stood looking out. The diffused light
hung in her heavy hair and in the folds of her dress, and her husband
watched her for a moment in silence. The illusion was strong upon him.
“The gown!” he said at last. “I can’t see the gown. But you walk like
a girl, only more gracefully, and your hair--you are getting younger,
Harriet.”
“Only more skilled in trickery.” She spoke lightly; then, with a glance
at the sky, she said in an altered voice,--
“How fast it fades.”
“The sunset? It’s clouding up fast. We’ll have a shower pretty soon.”
“Come,” she said, “let us go to dinner. I’ve kept you waiting.”
Harriet was quite herself now. All through the dinner she entertained
him, talking lightly about the little amusing incidents of the day, and
though her gayety ran false on her own ears, she knew from his face
that he thought it spontaneous.
“Your day has gone all right, I suppose?”
It was the question she had promised herself not to ask again. She had
held it back as long as she could, but it had escaped in spite of her,
and she realized how vain such a promise had been.
He nodded. “Nothing much one way or the other.”
“You didn’t do any trading in lard, then. That must have been rather
exciting when it slumped.”
He smiled. “You didn’t think I’d got caught in that, did you?”
“The other way about,” she said with a laugh. “I hoped you might have
made something on it. You knew it was coming, didn’t you?”
“No, I’m leaving lard alone just now.” (She wondered how real the
indifference in his voice might be.) “That’s Pickering’s deal. I
haven’t mixed into it--yet--What’s that?”
His exclamation was caused by the sound of voices raised in
altercation. It was followed by the thud of heavy footsteps approaching
the dining room. Sponley had half risen from his chair when the
portière was roughly brushed aside and Curtin entered the room.
“I’ve found you,” he said. “The maid told me you were at dinner.
She didn’t want to let me in, but I came. She thought I was drunk;
everybody thinks I’m drunk, but I’m not. I had to see you on a matter
of importance.”
He spoke clumsily, with a labored distinctness. Sponley looked at him
from head to foot, at his flushed face and disordered clothes.
“Take off your hat, Mr. Curtin,” he said shortly.
“I--I forgot,” stammered Curtin. “You probably think--”
“One moment,” Sponley interrupted. “Mrs. Sponley, if you will leave us
for a few moments, I’ll attend to Mr. Curtin’s business.”
When they were alone Sponley forestalled Curtin’s attempt to speak.
“Don’t tell me again you aren’t drunk. I know you aren’t. I know what’s
the matter with you. You’ve been buying lard to-day and you’ve got
squeezed. That’s the case, isn’t it?”
Curtin stared at him dully, but Sponley did not return the look. He
eyed his half-empty coffee cup and tapped it lightly with a spoon.
“I supposed you would do that,” he said thoughtfully, “and I suppose
you have taken some of the bank’s money to buy it with. You haven’t any
of your own.”
Curtin’s apathy forsook him suddenly. “You suppose!” he cried. His
shaking voice gained intensity as he went on. “You knew I would. You
told me to. You told me lard would go up, and you lied to me. You
damned old devil,” he shouted, “you tricked me. You did it to send me
to prison. You--”
“Be quiet!” Sponley thundered. It had been years since he had so far
lost control of himself; but Curtin had chanced to strike the joint in
his armor. The thought that Harriet had overheard the words put him
for an instant into a rage. But he recovered quickly.
“If you raise your voice like that again in this house, I shall
certainly have you sent to prison. I’ll have you snug in jail within
half an hour. I promise you that.”
In declaring that he had not been drinking, Curtin had told the truth;
yet his mental processes were those of a drunkard. Of all this man’s
many weaknesses, the greatest was a lack of poise; in his soberest
moments he was badly ballasted. The experiences of that afternoon,
the rapid alternation between rage and terror, had shaken him to the
foundation, and had left his mind in a state of unstable equilibrium
precisely like that of an inebriate. It careened far to this side or to
that at the smallest suggestive impulse. Sponley’s threat of sending
him to prison had recalled the nightmare of the afternoon, and his
anger gave way to the numbness of fear.
“If you were in condition to think,” said Sponley, meditatively, “I
could convince you that I didn’t try to lead you into a trap, as you
say. I don’t want you in prison on a charge of forgery or embezzlement
or whatever it would be. I need you outside. You’ll see that when you
get quieted down. How much will it cost to get you out of the hole?”
“A little over ten thousand.” The words came monotonously.
Sponley kept his eyes on the coffee cup.
“Well,” he said at last, “it’s worth the price. I’ll pull you out.”
Curtin looked at him in a daze. Then burying his face in his hands
he began to sob. Even to Sponley’s tough sensibilities the sight was
revolting.
“Get up!” he commanded. “Don’t be a disgusting fool.”
“I can’t thank you,” the other began brokenly.
“I want no thanks.” Sponley’s voice was almost a snarl. “It’s not a
favor to you; it’s business. It’s worth ten thousand dollars to me just
now to have you in Bagsbury’s bank. You’re in no shape for anything
now. Go home and go to sleep and come back here before banking hours,
and I’ll talk business with you and arrange to square you with the
bank. Come, get up!”
Curtin struggled to his feet and started toward the library door.
“Not that way,” said Sponley, sharply. “This is the way out.”
“I wanted to apologize to Mrs. Sponley for--”
Sponley caught him by the arm. “I don’t want to have to kick you out of
the house,” he said savagely. “Come with me.”
A moment later he spoke to Harriet from the library door,--
“I’ve got to see John Bagsbury for a while this evening.”
“Please don’t go just yet. I want to speak to you.”
Entering the room he saw her sitting bolt upright in the middle of the
big sofa, her hands clasped tight in her lap, her face colorless to the
lips.
“What’s the matter?” he cried in quick alarm. “Are you sick?”
“Please tell me,” she said, ignoring his question, “please tell me all
about it--about Mr. Curtin.”
“He’d been misled by something I said about lard’s going up into buying
a lot of it to-day. Of course, he got caught. He’d taken the bank’s
money to trade with. He got a fool notion into his head that I’d meant
to soak him.”
“Did you manage to convince him to the contrary?” she asked unsteadily.
“I promised to meet his losses out of my own pocket and square him with
the bank. That seemed to convince him.”
She leaned back among the pillows, breathing deeply and tremulously,
and he watched her smiling.
“What did you think?” he asked.
“Oh, I didn’t think at all--I couldn’t. I heard what he shouted at you
just as I went out and it made me--sick. I didn’t dare to think.”
He sat down beside her on the sofa and stroked her hand.
“I’ve been silly again,” she went on presently. “You see, you haven’t
told me about any of your plans lately, and I’m so used to knowing that
when you don’t tell me I get to imagining things--all sorts of things.”
“What would you have done if I had--if I had run it into Curtin that
way? What would you think of me?”
“Don’t,” she said quickly, “don’t try to tease me about it. I didn’t
really think so for a minute.”
“The fact is,” said Sponley, thoughtfully, “that this sort of life is
too much for you. Yes, it is,” he repeated in answer to the dissenting
movement of her head, “and I believe it’s too much for me, too; at any
rate, I’m getting a lot less enthusiastic about it; I’m beginning to
like to get away from it--and that’s something new for me. I suppose
that’s the reason I’ve had so little to say about it to you. When I get
home I like to think about other things, just as we did to-night at
dinner. We’ll have to shut up shop permanently, pretty soon, and get
off where it’s quiet; buy a farm somewhere, and we’ll go into politics
and run for supervisor or something. Won’t that be a good thing to do?”
Her only answer was a low, contented laugh, and then they both were
silent.
Melville Sponley was at that moment just at the beginning of one of the
biggest and most daring campaigns he ever planned. For months he had
been ready for it; in the past few days certain facts had transpired
which had enabled him to fix his plans definitely. The preliminary
moves were already made. The next move was a certain proposition he
meant to make to John Bagsbury that evening. The object of it all was
to break Pickering’s corner in lard. The campaign would be difficult,
but in point of strategy it was the neatest he had ever planned. All
the foresight he had shown in dealing with John during the past few
months would come to his help now.
But right on the threshold he was hesitating. He had told Harriet the
truth in saying that he was beginning to wish to quit. He had been
promising himself right along that this campaign should be his last. He
was rich enough to stop now, as far as that went. And after all, why
not? Indecision was a state of mind quite foreign to him, but to-night
his mind swung from one side to the other. When Harriet finally broke
the long silence, she almost startled him.
“You’ve made me happier to-night than I’ve been for a long time. But I
don’t want to be left alone. I’m afraid I’d get to thinking about Mr.
Curtin. You get the carriage and take me with you to the Bagsburys’. I
shan’t mind the rain.”
“All right,” he said.