way things happen--there are only a few people who grasp things and
_make_ them happen. That is real work; so many of us are just given
work we do not want--" she broke off.
"If we do not want the work, it is probably not our own," said
Lestrange. "Unless we have brought it on ourselves by a fault we must
undo--I need not speak of that to you. One must not make the mistake
of assuming some one else's work."
He spoke gently, almost as if with a clairvoyant reading of her
tendency to self-immolation.
"But may not some one else's fault be given us to undo?" she asked
eagerly. "May not their work be forced on us?"
"No," he answered.
"No?" bewildered.
"I don't think so. Each one of us has enough with his own, at least
so it seems to me. Most of us die before we finish it."
Emily paused, contending with the loneliness and doubts which impelled
her to speech, the feminine yearning to let another decide her
problems. This other's nonchalant strength of decision allured her
uncertainty.
"I am discouraged," she confessed. "And tired. I--there is no reason
why I should not speak of it. You know Dick, how he can do nothing in
the factory or business, or in the places where a Ffrench should
stand. All this must fall into the hands of strangers, to be broken
and forgotten, when my uncle dies, for lack of some one who would
care. And Uncle Ethan seems severe and hard, but it grieves him all
the time. His only son was not a good man; he lives abroad with his
wife, who was an actress before he married her. You knew that?" as he
moved.
"I heard something of it in the village," Lestrange admitted gravely.
"Please do not think me fond of gossip; I could not avoid it. But I
should not have imagined this a family likely to make low marriages."
"It never happened before. I never saw that cousin, nor did Dick; but
he was always a disappointment, always, Uncle Ethan has told me. And
since he failed, and Dick fails, there is only me."
"You!"
She nodded, her lip quivering.
"Only me. Not as a substitute--I am not fit for that--but to find a
substitute. I have promised my uncle to marry the first one who is
able to be that."
The silence was absolute. Lestrange neither moved nor spoke, gazing
down at her bent head with an expression blending many shades.
"It is a duty; there is no one except me," she added. "Only sometimes
I grow--to dislike it too much. I am so selfish that sometimes I hope
a substitute will never come."
Her voice died away. It was done; she, Emily Ffrench, had deliberately
confided to this stranger that which an hour before she would have
believed no one could force from her lips in articulate speech. And
she neither regretted nor was ashamed, although there was time for
full realization before Lestrange answered.
"I did not believe," he said, "that such things could be done. It is
nonsense, of course, but such magnificent nonsense! It is the kind of
situation, Miss Ffrench, where any man is justified in interfering. I
beg you will leave the affair in my hands and think no more of such
morbid self-sacrifice."
Stupefied, Emily flung back her head, staring at him.
"In _your_ hands?"
"Since there are none better, it appears. Why," his vivid face
questioned her full and straightly, "you didn't imagine that any man
living could hear what you are doing, and pass on?"
"My uncle knows--"
"Your uncle--is not for me to criticize. But do not ask any other man
to let you go on."
Her ideas reeling, she struggled for comprehension.
"You, what could you do?" she marveled. "The substitute--"
"There won't be any substitute," replied Lestrange with perfect
coolness. "I shall train Dick Ffrench to do his work."
"You--"
"I can, and I will."
"He can not--"
"Oh, yes, he can; he is just idle and spoiled," the firm lips set more
firmly. "He shall take his place. I can handle him."
Emily sat quite helplessly, her eyes black with excitement. Slowly
recollection flowed back to her of a change in Dick since his light
contact with Lestrange; his avoidance of even occasional highballs,
his awakening interest in the clean sport of the races, and his
half-wistful admiration for the virile driver-manager.
"I almost believe you could," she conceded.
"I can," repeated Lestrange. "Only," he openly smiled, "it will be
hard on Dickie."
It was the touch needed, the antidote to sentiment. Emily laughed with
him, laughed in sheer mischief and relief and leap of youth.
"You will be gentle--poor Dickie!"
"I'll be gentle. He is coming now, I think." He took a step nearer
her. "You will leave this in my care, wholly? You will not trouble
about--a substitute?"
"I will leave it with you. But you are forgetting your own doctrine;
you are taking some one else's work to do."
"Pardon, I am merely making Ffrench do his work. I have seen a little
more of him than you perhaps know; I understand what I am undertaking.
Moreover, I would forget a great many doctrines to set you free."
"Free?" she echoed; she had the sensation of being suddenly confronted
with an open door into the unexpected.
"Free," he quietly reasserted. "Free to live your own life and draw
unhampered breath, and to decide the great question when it comes,
with thought only of yourself."
She drew back; a prescient dismay fell sharply across her late relief,
a panic crossed with strange delight.
"He's off," called Dick, emerging from the park. "I made Anderson
take him down with the limousine. At least, Rupert is driving while
Anderson sits alongside and holds on; when they came to the turn in
the avenue, your precious mechanician took it full speed and then
apologized for going so slowly because, as he said, he was an amateur
and likely to upset. Is he really a good driver, Lestrange?"
"Pretty fair," returned Lestrange serenely, from his seat on the edge
of the ditched machine. "When I'm not using him, he's employed as one
of the factory car testers; and when we're racing I give him the wheel
if I want to fix anything. However, I'm obliged to that
steering-knuckle for breaking here, instead of leaving me to a long
wait in the wilds. Come down to the shop to-morrow at six, and Rupert
and I will even up by taking you for a run."
"Who; me? You're asking me?"
"Why not? It's exhilarating."
Dick removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair,
gratification and alarm mingling in his expression with somewhat the
effect of the small boy who is first invited into a game with his
older brother's clique.
"You--er, wouldn't smash me up?" he hesitated.
"I haven't smashed up Rupert or myself, so far. If you feel timid,
never mind, of course; I'll take my usual companion."
Dick flushed all over his plump face, the Ffrench blood up at last.
"I was only joking," he hastily explained. "I'll come. It's only that
you're so confoundedly reckless sometimes, Lestrange, and--But I'll
come."
Lestrange gave his fine, glinting smile as he rose to salute Emily.
"All right. If you don't get down to the factory in time, I'll call
for you," he promised.
V
There was a change in the Ffrench affairs, a lightening of the
atmosphere, a vague quickening and stir of healthful cheer in the days
that followed. The somber master of the house met it in Bailey's
undisguised elation and pride when they discussed the successful
business now taxing the factory's resources, met it yet again in
Emily's pretty gaiety and content. But most strikingly was he
confronted with an alteration in Dick.
It was only a week after his first morning ride with Lestrange, that
Dick electrified the company at dinner, by turning down the glass at
his plate.
"I've cut out claret, and that sort of thing," he announced. "It's
bad for the nerves."
His three companions looked up in complete astonishment. It was
Saturday night and by ancient custom Bailey was dining at the house.
"What has happened to you? Have you been attending a revival meeting?"
the young man's uncle inquired with sarcasm.
"It's bad for the nerves," repeated Dick. "There isn't any reason why
I shouldn't like to do anything other fellows do. Les--that is, none
of the men who drive cars ever touch that stuff, and look at their
nerve."
Mr. Ffrench contemplated him with the irritation usually produced by
the display of ostentatious virtue, but found no comment. Emily gazed
at the table, her red mouth curving in spite of all effort at
seriousness.
"You're right, Mr. Dick," said Bailey dryly. "Stick to it."
And Dick stuck, without as much as a single lapse. Ffrenchwood saw
comparatively little of him, as time went on, the village and factory
much. He lost some weight, and acquired a coat of reddish tan.
Emily watched and admired in silence. She had not seen Lestrange
again, but it seemed to her that his influence overlay all the life of
both house and factory. Sometimes this showed so plainly that she
believed Mr. Ffrench must see, must feel the silent force at work. But
either he did not see or chose to ignore. And Dick was incautious.
"I'm going to buy one of our roadsters myself," he stated one day.
"Can I have it at cost?"
Mr. Ffrench felt for his pince-nez.
"You? Why do you not use the limousine?"
"Because I don't want to go around in a box driven by a chauffeur. I
want a classy car to run myself. I've been driving some of the
stripped cars, lately, and I like it."
"I will give you a car, if you want one," answered his uncle, quite
kindly. "Go select any you prefer."
"Thank you," Dick sat up, beaming. "But I'll have to wait my turn,
we've orders ahead now. Lestrange says I've no right to come in and
make some other fellow wait."
Mr. Ffrench slowly stiffened.
"We do not require lessons in ethics from this Lestrange," was the
cold rebuke. "I shall telephone Bailey to send up your car at once."
Rupert brought the sixty-horse-power roadster to the door, three hours
later. And Emily appreciated that Lestrange was discreet as well as
compelling, when she found the black-eyed young mechanician was
detailed to accompany Dick's maiden trips; which duty was fulfilled,
incidentally, with the fine tact of a Richelieu.
In May there was a still greater accession of work at the factory. In
addition, the first of June was to open with a twenty-four hour race
at the Beach track, and Lestrange was entered for it. Excitement was
in the air; Dick came in the house only to eat and sleep.
The day before the race, Mr. Ffrench walked into the room where his
niece was reading.
"I want to see Bailey," he said briefly. "Do you wish to drive me down
to the factory, or shall I have Anderson bring around the limousine?"
"Please let us drive," she exclaimed, rising with alacrity. "I have
not been to the factory for months."
"Very good. You are looking well, Emily, of late."
Surprised, a soft color swept the face she turned to him.
"I am well. Dear, I think we are all better this spring."
"Perhaps," said Ethan Ffrench. His bitter gray eyes passed
deliberately over the large room with all its traces of a family life
extending back to pre-Colonial times, but he said no more.
It was an exquisite morning, too virginal for June, too richly warm
for May. When the two exchanged the sunny road for the factory office,
a north room none too light, it was a moment before their dazzled eyes
perceived no one was present. This was Bailey's private office, and
its owner had passed into the room beyond.
"I will wait," conceded Mr. Ffrench, dismissing the boy who had
ushered them in. "Sit down, Emily; Bailey will return directly, no
doubt."
But Emily had already sat down, for she knew the voice speaking beyond
the half-open door, and that the long-prevented meeting was now
imminent.
"It will not do," Lestrange was stating definitely. "It should be
reinforced."
"It's always been strong enough," Bailey's slower tones objected.
"For years. It's not a thing likely to break."
"Not likely to break? Look at last year's record, Mr. Bailey, and tell
me that. A broken steering-knuckle killed Brook in Indiana, another
sent Little to the hospital in Massachusetts, the same thing wrecked
the leader at the last Beach race and dashed him through the fence. Do
you know what it means to the driver of a machine hurling itself along
the narrow verge of destruction, when the steering-wheel suddenly
turns useless in his grasp? Can you feel the sick helplessness, the
confronting of death, the compressed second before the crash? Is it
worth while to risk it for a bit of costless steel?"
The clear realism of the picture forced a pause, filled by the dull
roar and throb through the machinery-crowded building.
"They were not our cars that broke, any of them," Bailey insisted.
"Not our cars, no. But the steering-knuckle of my own machine broke
under my hands last March, on the road, and if I had been on a curve
instead of a straight stretch there would have been a wreck. As it
was, I brought her to a stop in the ditch. There is no other thing
that may not leave a fighting chance after it breaks, but this leaves
absolutely none. I know, you both know, that the steering-wheel is the
only weapon in the driver's grasp. If it fails him, he goes out and
his mechanician with him."
Emily paled, shrinking. She remembered the road under the maples and
Lestrange's laughing face as he leaned breathless across his useless
wheel. That was what it had meant, then, the lightly treated episode!
"You'd better fix it like he wants it," advised Dick's disturbed
tones. "Remember, he's got to drive the car Friday and Saturday,
Bailey, not us."
"It's not alone for my racer I'm speaking, but for every car that
leaves the shop," Lestrange caught him up. "I'm not flinching; I've
driven the car before and I will again. It may hold for ever, that
part, but I've tested it and it's a weak point--take the warning for
what it's worth."
There was a movement as if he rose with the last word. Emily laid her
hand on the arm of the chair, turning her excited dark eyes on her
uncle. Surely if ever Mr. Ffrench was to meet his manager, this was
the moment; when Lestrange's ringing argument was still in their ears,
his splendid force of earnestness still vibrant in the atmosphere. And
suddenly she wanted them to meet, passionately wanted Ethan Ffrench's
liking for this man.
"Uncle," she began. "Uncle--"
But it was not Lestrange's light step that halted on the threshold.
"Why, I didn't know--" exclaimed Bailey. "Excuse me, Mr. Ffrench, they
didn't tell me you were down."
He glanced over his shoulder; as he pulled shut the door Emily fancied
she heard an echo, as if the two young men left the next room.
Bitterly disappointed, she sank back.
"That was your manager with you?" Mr. Ffrench frigidly inquired.
"Yes; he went up-stairs to see how the new drill is acting." Bailey
pulled out a handkerchief and rubbed his brow. "Excuse me, it's warm.
Yes, he wants me to strengthen a knuckle--he's spoken considerable
about it. I guess he's right; better too much than too little."
"I do not see that follows. I should imagine that you understood
building chassis better than this racing driver. You had best consult
outside experts in construction before making a change."
"Uncle!" Emily cried.
"There's a twenty-four hour race starts to-morrow night," Bailey
suggested uneasily. "It's easy fixed, and we might be wrong."
"We have always made them this way?"
"Yes, but--"
"Consult experts, then. I do not like your manager's tone; he is too
assuming. Now let me see those papers."
Emily's parasol slipped to the floor with a sharp crash as she stood
up, quite pale and shaken.
"Uncle, Mr. Lestrange knows," she appealed. "You heard him say what
would happen--please, please let it be fixed."
Amazed, Mr. Ffrench looked at her, his face setting.
"You forget your dignity," he retorted in displeasure. "This is mere
childishness, Emily. Men will be consulted more competent to decide
than this Lestrange. That will do."
From one to the other she gazed, then turned away.
"I will wait out in the cart," she said. "I--I would rather be
outdoors."
Dick Ffrench was up-stairs, standing with Lestrange in one of the
narrow aisles between lines of grimly efficient machines that bit or
cut their way through the steel and aluminum fed to them, when Rupert
came to him with a folded visiting card.
"Miss Ffrench sent it," was the explanation. "She's sitting out in her
horse-motor car, and she called me off the track to ask me to demean
myself by acting like a messenger boy. All right?"
"All right," said Dick, running an astonished eye over the card.
"No answer?"
"No answer."
"Then I'll hurry back to my embroidery. I'm several laps behind in my
work already."
"See here, Lestrange," Dick began, as the mechanician departed,
sitting down on a railing beside a machine steadily engaged in
notching steel disks into gear-wheels.
"Don't do that!" Lestrange exclaimed sharply. "Get up, Ffrench."
"It's safe enough."
"It's nothing of the kind. The least slip--"
"Oh, well," he reluctantly rose, "if you're going to get fussy. Read
what Emily sent up."
Lestrange accepted the card with a faint flicker of expression.
"Dick, uncle is making the steering-knuckle wait for expert opinion,"
the legend ran, in pencil. "Have Mr. Bailey strengthen Mr. Lestrange's
car, anyhow. Do not let him race so."
Near them two men were engaged in babbitting bearings, passing
ladlefuls of molten metal carelessly back and forth, and splashing
hissing drops over the floor; at them Lestrange gazed in silence,
after reading, the card still in his hand.
"Well?" Dick at last queried.
"Have Mr. Bailey do nothing at all," was the deliberate reply. "There
is an etiquette of subordination, I believe--this is Mr. Ffrench's
factory. I've done my part and we'll think no more of the matter. I
may be wrong. But I am more than grateful to Miss Ffrench."
"That's all you're going to do?"
"Yes. I wish you would not sit there."
"I'm tired; I won't fall in, and I want to think. We've been a lot
together this spring, Lestrange; I don't like this business about the
steering-gear. Do you go down to the Beach to-morrow?"
"To-night. To-morrow I must put in practising on the track. I would
have been down to-day if there had not been so much to do here. Are
you coming with me, or not until the evening of the start?"
Dick stirred uncomfortably.
"I don't want to come at all, thank you. I saw you race once."
"You had better get used to it," Lestrange quietly advised. "The day
may come when there is no one to take your place. This factory will be
yours and you will have to look after your own interests. I wish you
would come down and represent the company at this race."
"I haven't the head for it."
"I do not agree with you."
Their eyes met in a long regard. Here, in the crowded room of workers,
the ceaseless uproar shut in their conversation with a walled
completeness of privacy.
"I'm not sure whether you know it, Lestrange, but you've got me all
stirred up since I met you," the younger man confessed plaintively.
"You're different from other fellows and you've made me different. I'd
rather be around the factory than anywhere else I know, now. But
honestly I like you too well to watch you race."
"I want you to come."
"I--"
One of the men with a vessel of white, heaving molten metal was trying
to pass through the narrow aisle. Dick broke his sentence to rise in
hasty avoidance, and his foot slipped in a puddle of oil on the floor.
It was so brief in happening that only the workman concerned saw the
accident. As Dick fell backward, Lestrange sprang forward and caught
him, fairly snatching him from the greedy teeth. There was the rending
of fabric, a gasping sob from Dick, and reeling from the recoil,
Lestrange was sent staggering against a flying emery wheel next in
line.
The workman set down his burden with a recklessness endangering
further trouble, active too late.
"Mr. Lestrange!" he cried.
But Lestrange had already recovered himself, his right arm crossed
with a scorched and bleeding bar where it had touched the glittering
wheel, and the two young men were standing opposite each other in
safety.
"You are not hurt?" was the first question.
"_I?_ I ought to be, but I'm not. Come to a surgeon, Lestrange--Oh,
you told me not to sit there!"
Lestrange glanced down at the surface-wound, then quickly back at the
two pallid faces.
"Go on to your work, Peters," he directed. "I'm all right." And as the
man slowly obeyed, "_Now_ will you take my advice and come to the race
with me, Ffrench?"
"Race! You'd race with that arm?"
"Yes. Are you coming with me?"
Shaken and tremulous, Dick passed a damp hand across his forehead.
"I think you're mad to stand talking here. Come to the office, for
heaven's sake. And, I'd be ground up there, if you hadn't caught me,"
he looked toward the jaws sullenly shredding and reshredding a strip
of cloth from his sleeve. "I'll do anything you want."
"Will you?" Lestrange flashed quickly. He flung back his head with the
resolute setting of expression the other knew so well, his eyes
brilliant with a resolve that took no heed of physical discomfort.
"Then give me your word that you'll stick to your work here. That is
my fear; that the change in you is just a mood you'll tire of some
day. I want you to stand up to your work and not drop out
disqualified."
"I will," said Dick, subdued and earnest. "I couldn't help doing
it--your arm--"
Lestrange impatiently dragged out his handkerchief and wound it around
the cut.
"Go on."
"I can't help keeping on; I couldn't go back now. You've got me awake.
No one else ever tried, and I was having a good time. It began with
liking you and thinking of all you did, and feeling funny alongside of
you." He paused, struggling with Anglo-Saxon shyness. "I'm awfully
fond of you, old fellow."
The other's gray eyes warmed and cleared. Smiling, he held out his
left hand.
"It's mutual," he assured. "It isn't playing the game to trap you
while you are upset like this. But I don't believe you'll be sorry.
Come find some one to tie this up for me; I can't have it stiff
to-morrow."
But in spite of his professed haste, Lestrange stopped at the head of
the stairs and went back to recover some small object lying on the
floor beneath a pool of chilling metal. When he rejoined Dick, it was
to linger yet a moment to look back across the teeming room.
"It's worth having, all this," he commented, with the first touch of
sadness the other ever had seen in him. "Don't throw it away,
Ffrench."
There is usually a surgeon within reach of a factory. When Mr. Ffrench
passed out to the cart where Emily waited, he passed Dick and the
village physician entering. The elder gentleman put on his glasses to
survey his nephew's white face.
"An accident?" he inquired.
The casual curiosity was sufficiently exasperating, and Dick's nerves
were badly gone.
"Nothing worth mentioning," he snapped. "Just that I nearly fell into
the machinery and Lestrange has done up his arm pulling me out. That's
all."
And he hurried the doctor on without further parley or excuse.
Lestrange was in the room behind the office, smoking one of Bailey's
cigars and listening to that gentleman's vigorous remarks concerning
managers who couldn't keep out of their own machinery, the patient not
having considered it worth while to explain Dick's share in the
mischance. An omission which Dick himself promptly remedied in his
anxious contrition.
Later, when the arm was being swathed in white linen, its owner spoke
to his companion of the morning:
"I hope you didn't annoy Miss Ffrench with this trifling matter, as
you came in."
"I didn't speak to her at all, only to my uncle."
"Very good."
Something in the too-indolent tone roused Dick's usually dormant
observation. Startled, he scrutinized Lestrange.
"Is that why you bothered yourself with me?" he stammered. "Is that
why--"
"Shut up!" warned Lestrange forcibly and inelegantly. "That isn't
tight enough, Doc. You know I'm experienced at this sort of thing, and
I'm going to use this arm."
But Dick was not to be silenced in his new enlightenment. When the
surgeon momentarily turned away, he leaned nearer, his plump face
grim.
"If I brace up, it won't be for Emily, but for you, Darling
Lestrange," he whispered viciously. "She don't want me and I don't
want her, that way. I've got over that. And, and--oh, confound it, I'm
sorry, old man!"
"Shut up!" said Lestrange again.