BROMLEY had been occupying the spare bed-room in the Dabney cottage
for nearly a fortnight on the Saturday when, calling at the Windsor
Hotel to tell the Follansbees about a bargain in furnished houses he
had happened to hear of, he saw Stephen Drew registering in at the room
clerk’s desk and crossed the lobby to shake hands with him.
“This is a piece of luck,” said the lessee of the “Little Jean,”
after the greetings were passed. “I didn’t know your address and was
expecting to have to dig you up through the bank or the post-office. I
came down on business, but also I was anxious to get hold of you. If
you have a few minutes to spare----?”
“All the time there is,” returned the play-boy cheerfully, leading the
way to a couple of the lobby chairs. Then, with a laugh: “I hope you
are not going to tell me the ‘Little Jean’ is petering out.”
“Nothing like that. The mine is all right. The values are increasing,
as your next dividend will show. I wanted to talk to you about Trask.
Do you know where he is?”
“I haven’t the remotest idea. He dropped out between two minutes one
morning early last week, leaving a note which merely said that he was
vanishing. It’s all right, though. He has been making a good many
swings around the circle in the past month or so, on a sort of still
hunt for his--for a man he is trying to find.”
“Did you see him before he left Denver this last time?”
“Why, yes; I was with him the evening before he left; and I saw him,
for just a minute or two, the next morning.”
“Anything wrong with him then?”
Bromley took time to think back. Previous to that brittle meeting in
the breakfast-room at Charpiot’s, Philip had been out, somewhere, all
night. Now that he recalled it, he remembered that the meeting had
been only momentary; that Philip had looked rather the worse for wear;
that his refusal to take the spare room in the Dabney cottage had been
almost brutal in its abruptness.
“I can’t say there was anything definitely wrong,” he replied. “I
remember he looked a bit gloomy and wrought up, but that is nothing new
for him. He has pretty bad attacks of the New England conscience at
times--if you know what that means.”
Drew nodded. “I understand. But that isn’t to the point just now. Your
partner is in Leadville, and he is badly in need of a friend; somebody
near enough and intimate enough to take him by the neck.”
Bromley laughed easily.
“There must be some mistake about that. Philip, himself, is the one who
rushes around taking people by the neck.”
“You are off wrong, this time,” the promoter cut in shortly. “I don’t
believe he has been entirely sober at any one time during the past two
weeks, and he seems to be permeated with an idea that he can use up
all the red paint there is and break all the gambling banks in the camp
if he only sticks at it long enough.”
“Good heavens!” Bromley gasped; “not _Philip_!”
“Yes, Philip. Of course, I understand that it’s none of my business,
but I hate to see such a fine, upstanding fellow as he is go to the
devil in a hand-basket. Has he had trouble of any sort?”
Bromley took a moment to consider whether or not he had a right to
breach Philip’s confidence in the matter of the search for his father,
and decided quickly that the present crisis warranted it. Very briefly
he told Drew the little he knew about the Trask family tragedy, and of
the futile search Philip had been making.
“Ah,” said the shrewd-witted developer of mines, “that may be the clue.
You say Philip believed in his father’s innocence?”
“Absolutely and utterly. But from what he has told me, I gathered that
he was pretty much alone in that belief; that, as a matter of fact, not
even the other members of the family shared it.”
“I see. Then that may be the key to the present situation. Trask is
pretty sensitive on the family honor question, and all that, isn’t he?”
“Exceedingly so. It, and his conscience, are his little tin gods.”
“There you are, then. You say his search for his father has been
futile. You don’t know positively that it was, do you?”
“It was, up to the night before he went to Leadville.”
“Well, many a man has had his world turned upside down for him between
dark and daylight in a single night. Whatever the cause may have been,
the effects are as I have indicated. Philip is setting a pace that not
even a half-share in a gold mine can stand indefinitely. If you think
you can do anything with him, you’d better go after him. As I say, he
is needing a friend mighty badly.”
“Sure I’ll go,” agreed the play-boy promptly. “I owe Philip a lot more
than I’ll ever be able to pay. And you mustn’t judge him by this one
fall-down, Mr. Drew. There are some people who suffer most from an
excess of their virtues--if you know what I mean--and Philip is one
of those. He has stood up stiff and straight all his life, and when a
fellow who lives that way gets bowled over----”
“I know,” assented the man of large experience. “The greatest danger in
a case of that kind lies in that ‘excess of the virtues’ you speak of.
When the barriers are once thrown down, the job of rebuilding them is
apt to seem hopeless.”
“That is where it will hit Phil the hardest, I’m sure. But we won’t
hope for the worst. Are you stopping over for a few days?”
“Until Monday or Tuesday. Are your quarters here in the Windsor?”
“Oh, no; I have a boarding place in West Denver--with friends. I’m here
just now to call upon some other friends--people from Philadelphia. And
that reminds me: you said you used to live in Philadelphia; perhaps you
know these friends of mine--the Follansbees?”
“Not Judge John?”
“You have called the turn; Judge John and Mrs. Judge John and Tom and
Eugenia and Lucy Ann.”
“You don’t tell me! I know the judge and his wife very well, indeed;
and the children, too, though they were only children in my time. You
say they are here, in the hotel?”
“Yes. Wait a minute and I’ll carry the word to them.”
He was gone only a short time, and when he returned to the lobby, the
judge and Mrs. Follansbee came with him. He stood aside while the three
were happily bridging the gap of the years, and at the first lull he
broke in smoothly to say to Drew: “Mrs. Follansbee has been good enough
to include me in a dinner party for this evening, and I have just told
her that I am unexpectedly obliged to leave town, but I was quite sure
you would be willing to substitute for me.”
“Of course you will, Stephen,” put in the lady patroness, surveying
the stocky figure of the promoter through her lorgnette; then, with
a sigh for the vanished years: “My, my; what a man you’ve grown to
be! I should never have known you, with that clipped beard and the
eyeglasses. Can’t you spare a few minutes to come up to our suite and
see Eugenia and Lucy Ann? They both remember you.”
Bromley glanced at his watch and slipped away. He had promised to take
Jean Dabney to luncheon, and there was barely time to reach Madame
Marchande’s place in Sixteenth Street by the appointed noon hour.
When he did reach the millinery shop he found Jean waiting on the
sidewalk for him, and he took her to a new chop house lately opened
in the block next to the St. James, steering clear of the subject that
was uppermost in his mind until after they were seated in one of the
box-like private stalls and their order had been given and served. Then
he began without preface.
“I want to ask you something about Philip, Jean. He walked home with
you a week ago last Monday evening, didn’t he?”
“Let me think,” she answered reflectively. “To-day is Saturday; yes, it
was a week ago Monday.”
“Did he--did he act as though he was especially troubled about
anything?”
“Why, no; not that I saw. I remember he scolded me a little because he
seemed to think I wasn’t quite as savagely righteous as I ought to be.
But he has done that lots of times. He walks so straight himself that
he can’t bear to see anybody lean over, ever so little.”
Bromley winced. If Drew’s story were true--and there was no reason to
doubt it--Philip was not walking straight now; he was grovelling. What
would Jean say if she knew? He had not meant to tell her what he had
just heard; did not yet mean to tell her. Still, she would have to
know, some time. If he could only be sure that the knowledge wouldn’t
smash her.... He would have to feel his way carefully.
“I am wondering if Philip ever told you anything about his father,” he
said; and he tried to say it casually.
“Oh, yes; he has told me all there was to tell, I think: how his father
went away under a--under a cloud, and how he has been searching for
him out here. Was that what you meant?”
Bromley nodded. There was nothing in her tone or manner to lead him to
believe that she had anything more than a friendly interest in Philip’s
problem, and he went on.
“He has been away for two weeks, or nearly two weeks. He left town the
next morning after he walked home with you that Monday evening. He
didn’t tell me where he was going. Did he tell you?”
“He said he might go to the camps down in the San Juan next. But he
didn’t say anything about going so soon. Haven’t you heard from him
since that time?”
“No; he hasn’t written me,” Bromley hastened to say, telling a
half-truth which was little short of a lie direct.
“But you are not anxious about him, are you?”
“Anxious? Why should I be?”
“But I think you are,” she said, looking him fairly in the eyes.
As upon certain other occasions, he tried hard to plumb the depths of
the dark eyes that were lifted to his, striving to read the answer to
a question that had been tormenting him ever since his first meeting
with her. How much did she care for Philip? Was she as much in love
with him as he was with her? If she were, this was neither the time nor
the place for the repeating of Drew’s story. But if she were not ... he
made up his mind suddenly and took the plunge.
“Jean, you know you can trust me to the limit, don’t you? Tell me
honestly what there is between you and Philip.”
“What there is between us?” The steady gaze of the dark eyes did not
waver. “We are friends, of course; good friends, I hope.”
“Nothing more?”
“What more could there be?”
“Then I may talk to you just as I might to any other friend of his?”
“I don’t know why you shouldn’t.” Tone and manner both gave him the
assurance that he might go on; that there was nothing more vital to be
wounded than the friendship she had admitted.
“Something has happened to Philip. I lied to you a minute ago--said I
hadn’t heard from Phil. I haven’t, not directly; but Mr. Drew is down
from Leadville, and he tells me that Philip is up in the big camp,
ripping things wide open. I couldn’t believe it--can hardly believe it
yet.”
The deep-welled eyes were downcast now, and Bromley held his breath. If
there were a little quiver of the sensitive lips when she spoke, the
play-boy missed it--missed everything but the steady tone of her reply.
“I have been afraid of something like that, haven’t you? Of course, you
know what has happened?”
“I don’t--I can’t imagine!”
“It is perfectly plain. He has found his father.”
“You think that is it?”
“I am sure of it.”
“But, even so--” he began.
“Don’t you see? He hasn’t--he didn’t find things as he hoped to find
them. Don’t you know him well enough to know what that would do to him?”
It was said coolly enough, almost coldly; and Bromley marvelled. He
had never imagined she could be so dispassionate. Before he could pull
himself around to some half-way adequate matching of her mood, she went
on:
“Philip has always walked in a very narrow and straight path for
himself, and he is very proud, in his own way. If something has
happened to break his pride.... I know that is what _has_ happened; I
am sure of it.”
The play-boy drew a deep breath. The worst was over, and it wasn’t
nearly as bad as he had feared it would be. Either she didn’t care,
any more than a friendly soul should care, or she had more adamantine
self-control than had fallen to the share of any other woman he had
ever known.
“I’m going up after him to-night,” he said. “When I get him back here
you’ll have to help me.”
“Of course--if I can,” she agreed. “But if it is as I think it is, I’m
afraid neither of us will be able to help him very much.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just because he is what he is. Some people have to be helped; they
can’t get up unless they are helped. But there are others--and Philip
is one of them--who have to fight their way back the best they can,
alone. It’s hard to think of it that way, for a--for a friend. But it
is true.”
Bromley forced himself to smile.
“You are a very wise little woman, much wiser than your years call
for. But see here--you’re not eating enough to keep a kitten alive. How
do you expect to be able to work if you don’t eat?”
“I’m not as hungry as I thought I was. It’s the hot weather, maybe.”
“Couldn’t you eat another cream puff if I should order it?”
“No, thank you. Besides, my time is up. I know it isn’t nice to eat and
run, but if you _will_ invite a working girl out to luncheon, you’ll
have to take the consequences.”
He walked back to the door of the millinery shop with her and at the
moment of parting she said, “You’ll be gentle with Philip when you find
him, won’t you? It won’t do any good to be the other way.”
“I shall take him by the neck,” he threatened good-naturedly, adding:
“He’s old enough and man enough to have better sense.” Then: “I’m going
to be fearfully busy this afternoon. Do you suppose Mysie could pack my
grip for me if I should send a messenger after it with a note?”
“Mysie would be dreadfully humbled if she could hear you ask such a
thing as that,” she smiled. “She isn’t the child you seem to persist in
believing her to be. She will be sixteen in a few days. How long do you
think you will be away?”
“Heaven knows; no longer than I can help, you may be sure. Good-by;
take care of yourself, and don’t work too hard. If you want to do
anything for me while I’m gone, just say a little prayer or two. It
runs in my mind that I may need all the help I can get. Good-by.”
Having become, in a desultory way, a working capitalist, or at least
an investing one, Bromley had a number of business matters to be
despatched before he could leave town for an indefinite stay. None
the less, out of a well-filled afternoon he clipped time enough
to go around to the Colorado National Bank where Philip kept his
account. Since he was known in the bank as Philip’s partner, he had
no difficulty in finding out what he wished to learn. Philip had been
drawing heavily on his checking account during the two weeks, and
the drafts had all come through Leadville banks. Bromley asked for
the approximate figure and gasped when he was told that the recent
withdrawals totalled something over twenty thousand dollars.
Quartered in the sleeper for the night run to Leadville, Bromley,
generously distressed, was still groping for some reasonable solution
to the problem presented by Philip’s wild splash into the sea of
dissipation--a plunge so wholly out of keeping with his character. Was
Jean’s guess that he had found his father, and that the discovery had
proved to be a calamity instead of a cause for rejoicing, the right
one? If not, what other upsetting thing could have happened between
half-past seven in the Monday evening, when he had left Philip in their
common sitting-room in the Alamo Building, and the next morning when he
had met him leaving the breakfast-table in Charpiot’s? Where had Philip
spent the night? And what had occurred during those few unaccounted-for
hours to put a look of morbid gloom in his eyes and to make him refuse,
almost savagely, to become an inmate of the West Denver cottage?
“He’d had a knock-down fight of some sort with that strait-laced
conscience of his, I suppose, and it must have been a bloody one to
make him let go all holds like this,” the play-boy told himself,
balancing on the edge of the made-down berth to take off his shoes as
the train began its swaying, wheel-shrilling climb in the snake-like
sinuosities of Platte Canyon. Then, as he drew the curtains and essayed
the irritating task of undressing in the dark, cramped berth, with the
car careening to right and left like a ship at sea: “He’ll find it bad
medicine and bitter; but if it will only end by making a normal human
man of him....”
It was deep in the night, and the train was halted at a mountain-side
station, when Bromley awoke, shivering in the chill of the high
altitude, and sat up to reach for the extra blanket at the foot of
the berth. As he did so, a thunderous murmur in the air announced the
approach of the Denver-bound train for which his own was side-tracked,
and he ran a window shade up to look out just as the eastbound train,
with its miniature locomotive and short string of cars, coasted down,
with brake-shoes grinding, to the meeting-point stop.
Reflecting upon it afterward, he thought it a most curious coincidence
that the night chill should have awakened him just at this time, and
that the momentary stop of the opposing train should place the one pair
of lighted windows in its single Pullman opposite his own darkened
one. While one might have counted ten he sat staring, wide-eyed,
across the little space separating the two standing trains. The
lighted windows opposite were those in the smoking compartment of the
eastbound sleeper. Around the little table bracketed between the seats
sat three men with cards in their hands and stacks of red, white and
blue counters before them. Though two of the men were unknown to the
play-boy, he was able instantly to label them as birds of prey. The
third man was Philip; a Philip so changed and wasted by two weeks of
unrestraint as to be scarcely recognizable.
As Bromley looked he saw one of the birds of prey pass a flat pocket
bottle across the table; and his final glimpse through the lighted
window as the down train slid away showed him Philip with his head
thrown back and the tilted bottle at his lips.
“Good Lord!” groaned the play-boy, falling back upon his pillows, “Drew
didn’t stretch it an inch! Those two blacklegs will strip Phil to the
skin before they let go of him and before they will let him get sober
enough to realize what they’re doing to him! And I’ve got to go through
to Leadville and come all the way back before I can get a chance to
stick my oar in!” At the word the westbound train began to move, and he
pulled the blankets up to his ears, muttering again: “There’s only one
ray of comfort in the whole desperate business, and that is that Jean
isn’t going to break her heart over this diabolic blow-up of Philip’s.
I’m glad I took the trouble to make sure of that, anyhow.”
But if, at this precise moment of midnight, he could have looked into
the bed-room next to his own in the West Denver cottage, the room
occupied by Jean and her sister Mysie, the comforting reflection might
have lost something of its force. The younger sister was sleeping
peacefully, but the elder had slipped quietly out of bed to kneel at
the open, westward-fronting window with her shoulders shaking and her
face buried in the crook of a bare white arm.