A BUSINESS PROPOSAL
“Run your car off to one side where it won’t interfere with the
traffic.” The financier ordered Leslie about precisely as he might have
ordered one of his men. His tones reached her, coldly concise, entirely
devoid of affection. “There, that will do.” He skillfully manipulated
the racer to a point parallel with her car, but out of the way of
passing automobiles.
“What do you want?” Leslie inquired with sulky coolness.
“What are you doing here?” sternly countered her father.
“Nothing. You took away my job.”
“A good thing I did. I ordered you to stay in New York. Why are you not
there? Why didn’t you obey me? You’re courting business college, it
would seem.”
“Things are not always what they seem,” Leslie came back laconically.
The financier set his lips anew. It was either that or smile. Leslie was
regarding him with the curiously unafraid expression which had most
amused him in her as a child.
“Why can’t you behave properly?” he demanded with vexed displeasure.
“I don’t know. I have been trying to find that out for myself lately.
It’s a hard job, Peter.” She purposely called him Peter. It had been
another of her laughable childish mannerisms.
It brought a smile, reluctant and fleeting to his face. An odd light
burned in his eyes for an instant. He turned his head to avoid her
penetrating gaze. He had never before heard Leslie make an allusion to
self-analysis. The knowledge that she had begun to try to fathom her
forward motives was encouraging.
“What mischief have you done since you came up here?” he next asked.
“Why could not you have cultivated Natalie instead of racing over the
country up here in a car?”
“Nat is going to be married to a monocle and an English title. She is
hopeless. I couldn’t stand her. I fled to the country, Peter. I knew you
wouldn’t wish to have me die of being bored. Don’t rag Gaylord for it. I
made her come here. She’s a good, ladylike sport, who knows how to stick
to me and yet mind her own affairs. You may think you picked her for me.
No, no; I saw her first. That gives me a prior claim to bossing her. I’m
glad I met you, if only to settle that little point in your mind.”
Leslie’s hands busied themselves with the wheel. “I think I’ll go on,”
she declared tranquilly. “Don’t worry, Peter, I won’t do anything more
to disgrace you. I’m going to lead a noble life from now on.”
She was fighting desperately to maintain humorous indifference. It was
the side of her character which Peter Cairns most appreciated. She was
now fighting to regain the proud interest he had once taken in her ready
wit and irresistible humor. Her reprehensible behavior had amounted to
stupidity. Peter Cairns most hated stupidity in man or woman.
Peter Cairns repressed an audible chuckle at this latest news from his
lawless daughter. “This is not the place to discuss ethics,” he said
dryly. “Run your car into town and meet me in the hotel lounge.”
“Race you in; cross town, or any old way?” Leslie proposed on impulse.
She eyed her father doubtfully.
For a long moment the two stared into each other’s faces, as though each
were endeavoring to determine the strength or weakness of the other.
“I’ll go you.” Peter Cairns spoke with a finality which set Leslie’s
heart to pounding violently.
“My car was built for speed and I know how to get the speed out of it
without arousing the natives. Look out, and don’t get pinched.” Leslie
brought her car up on an exact line with the racer. “One, two, three, go
to it,” she called animatedly. Then she was off over the pike on not
only a go-as-you please race to Hamilton. She was on the first lap of
what she hoped would be the quick road back to her father’s heart.
Leslie won the race. Peter Cairns was not familiar with the short cut
she took. It bumped her car over a stretch of uneven paved street but
brought her triumphantly to the entrance of the Hamilton House at least
a minute ahead of her father’s car.
“Why did you pick Hamilton of all places to come back to?” Peter Cairns
was presently demanding of her. The two had seated themselves opposite
each other in a deserted corner of the lounge.
“Probably the scene of my many crimes held a fascination for me,” Leslie
advanced with a reflective air that completely upset the financier’s
hitherto carefully preserved gravity. He laughed outright.
“What did this Miss Dean against whom I understand you had so much spite
ever do to you that was unfair or dishonorable?” His alert features had
quickly returned to their customary aloof cast.
“Not a blamed thing, Peter,” she said in a tone of sober humiliation.
“You were right. I am several kinds of idiot, bound in one volume. The
war’s over. I surrendered this afternoon, just before I met you.
Whatever you know about Bean and me is probably true.”
“Who is Bean?” demanded Peter Cairns.
Leslie enlightened him. At the same time she quoted Marjorie’s own
recent remarks on the subject. “You can see from that why I quit,” she
said. “There was nothing else to do. Some day, when I’ve really put over
a good square business enterprise I’ll tell you the story of Bean, her
Beanstalks and Leslie Adoree.”
“Your first business ought to be to repair the mischief you made,” was
the severely judicial response. “Unfortunately you can’t undo the
anxious, troubled hours which your malice has imposed upon others. You
have taught me a lesson. I needed it. My code of finance has been that
of a hawk. I have revised it on more humane lines. I’d rather not have
learned it from your mistakes. But it’s been learned now. I am not sorry
I cut you off from me. Perhaps it was not the way to do. I don’t know. I
loved you very tenderly as a child, Leslie. I was proud of you as a
youngster. I should like to be proud of you as a young woman. What are
the prospects?”
“Good, Peter. The best since the days when I was your pal and we planned
to conquer the universe together. I’m trying to think of a way to make
amends.” She met her father’s measuring glance with an air of patience
quite foreign to her old wayward self. “I like it up here. I’ve a girl
friend on the campus. I really like her. I want you to meet her. Gaylord
approves of her. What more can you ask?”
“I’ll take you at your word.” For the first time since meeting her
father he held out his hand. Leslie placed her right hand in his strong
fingers. Her left reached out very timidly and covered the hand she
held. It was the silent ratification of affection between Peter and
Peter Cairns’ daughter.
“How did you know I was here?” she asked after a brief silence.
“I told Wilkins, my secretary, to keep track of you. I made only a
flying trip to Europe. He told me you were here. I drove here soon after
leaving the steamer. I had business at Hamilton Estates.”
“What are you going to do with my garage flivver?” A gleam of intense
curiosity lived in Leslie’s eyes. “You said in your letter that some day
I’d know why I had no business to buy the property for the site. Is
today the day?”
“It may as well be.” Peter Cairns looked away, his mind evidently
engaged in choosing the words for his next utterance. “My name isn’t
Peter Cairns,” he said deliberately. “It’s Peter Carden. Alec Carden was
my father. I ran away from him and his harsh tyranny. I changed my name
to Cairns. The old Scotch name of our family was Cairrens. It became
Carden in James the First’s time.”
“What?” Force of surprise brought out Leslie’s habitual monosyllable.
She wondered if she were awake or dreaming. Had her father, a lord of
finance, once been a hot-headed rebellious boy who had changed his name
and run away from Carden Hedge?
“Yes, what?” her father repeated half ironically. “My father left Carden
Hedge to John, along with all he had. He disinherited me. When I went I
took with me a bundle of bonds from the safe. They were mine; left me by
my mother. I went to New York and made good. All this by the way of
explaining about the garage site. You paid John Saxe sixty thousand
dollars for a site that belonged to the Carden Estate. Not a foot of it
belonged to the Saxe Estate. I had it surveyed and proved the Carden
right to it. Saxe refunded the money. He was innocent in the matter.”
Leslie’s downcast reception of this last crushing surprise touched her
father. “Buck up, Cairns II.,” he said in the hearty, affectionate tone
which Leslie had been dreading, yet longing, to hear. “I know I handed
you a hummer. Now there’s not much more to say, except that I bought
Carden Hedge over two years ago of John. I’ve let him live there off and
on, simply to have someone look after the property a little. I thought
once of living there myself. I changed my mind. It’s a pretty country up
here. I liked it when I was a boy, and do still. I must be on my way
tomorrow. How long would you like to stay in Hamilton?” He questioned
with the old deference he had formerly observed to her wishes.
“I’d rather go back to New York with you.” Leslie fought to keep her
voice steady. “I can’t. I want to stay on here a little and try to find
a way to do something for the dormitory, or the college or the
students—anything I can do to make up for—” She paused, regained
composure, went on. “I’m to blame for keeping you out of happiness. I
cheated myself, too. How could you care to live at the Hedge after what
I did at Hamilton? I have learned the big lesson this time. I’d go back
to college and begin all over again in spite of what might be said, if I
could, Peter. I’d do it for you.”
Peter Cairns saw a white-winged evanescent grace called happiness flit
before his eyes. It had whisked away the day he had learned of Leslie’s
expulsion from college. “Perhaps we’ll yet live at the Hedge, Leslie,”
he said. “We can do that much, if we can’t go back in other ways. Now
I’ll make a bargain with you. If you can find any good and original
reason for keeping your flivver I’ll give the whole business to you as
it stands. It must be original, though. That’s the chief requirement.
And it must be something that will benefit Hamilton College students,
faculty, dormitory—in fact the whole aggregation. Go to it. You perfect
the plan. I’ll finance it for you. Nothing but the best will be accepted
by me in the idea line. I’m going to try to prove that my girl has as
good a brain as there is going.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------