"Why?"
"Because there's no reason for my being here. There never was any
reason. You knew it when I asked you to take me, but I didn't--because
I didn't know you and your family."
"That's a compliment, isn't it?"
"It's just the truth. I'm glad my cousins are with you.... I'd like to
go back now."
"Tired of us?"
"You don't have to ask that."
"More compliments," said Rivett. "What is wrong, then?"
"I am."
"Hadn't noticed it."
Edgerton smiled faintly. "More compliments? ... Mr. Rivett, I want to
go to town and hunt up a job, and get in the game. That's all."
"Can't you wait a month and see us through the October shooting?"
Edgerton stepped nearer.
"I would, merely because you ask me, but I can't. I just want to get
away quietly, and not bother anybody.... I've broken my arm."
Mr. Rivett swung sharply and his eye-glasses glittered.
"Which?" he demanded.
"The left.... I'll just run down to town and have it fixed up. Don't
say anything about it until I've left."
"Won't you stay here and let us look after you?"
"I knew you'd say that. You've been very nice to me. Ask me again as a
guest. I'll be glad to come as a friend if you care for me that way."
Mr. Rivett's unchanging eyes watched him.
"We'll ask you. My wife likes you. So do I.... I don't want to
interfere with a man who knows his own mind.... But do you think you
can stand the journey?"
Edgerton's white lips were compressed.
"Yes," he said.
"Very well; we'll stop at Fern Center. Billings can reduce the
fracture."
"Are you going with me?"
"I certainly am," said the elder man.
With a valet's aid he got into his clothes. His swollen wrist lay in a
sling.
"I won't bother the others now," he said to Mrs. Rivett who was on the
edge of tears because he would not remain and let her take care of him.
"Please say good-by for me when they come in, and say that I'm all right
and hope to see them all again.... Good-by! ... It's been a real
happiness to know you--and yours. Will you let me continue the
friendship?"
"Please do," she said tremulously. "Jacob, you will tell Holmes to
drive carefully, won't you?"
"Yes, mother. Billings is going to put him in good shape."
So they drove away in a big red touring car, Edgerton sick with pain,
but perfectly cheerful; Rivett taciturn, twirling his gloved thumbs,
seeming to muse gloomily in his walrus mustache.
Dr. Billings reduced the fracture--a simple one--Edgerton refusing
anaesthetics. He fainted during the short operation, and came to with
his head on Rivett's shoulder.
Half an hour later he was on his way to New York, lying back in a chair
in the drawing-room car, feverish lids closed. Rivett sat in the chair
opposite.
"I was going, anyway," he said briefly in reply to the young fellow's
protest.
And together they made the journey, not only to the city, but to
Edgerton's apartment, where Rivett quietly turned himself into a valet,
helped the young man to bed, called up his physician, Dr. Ellis,
lingered to learn what condition the patient was in, and silently
vanished. And for two or three days Edgerton forgot about him, for
Ellis kept him pretty quiet, and the nurse who had been summoned knew
her business.
He managed, however, to write his bread-and-jam letter to Mrs. Rivett,
and another to Diana:
"MY DEAR COUSIN:
"They've probably told you that I've been ass enough to snap a bone in
my left arm. It's nothing, as you hunting people understand. I was a
bit stupid with it, so I ran down to town to have it fixed up--and,
incidentally, hunt up a job; and I wasn't up to explaining and saying
by-by to everybody, so I just slunk off--ill mannered pup that I am; but
people are indulgent to dogs.
"This is just a line to take leave of you and Silvette, and to ask you
to remember that, in any and all interims, this apartment is a family
joint, so don't go elsewhere and pay perfectly good rent. Your room and
Silvette's is always ready for you--useless unless you use it.
"When I nail a job, I'll report to the family. If you make new plans,
may I hear from you?
"Wishing you both a jolly and successful autumn,
"Your cousin,
"JAMES EDGERTON 3d."
Her reply came by return mail:
"Jim, dear, I feel very badly about your injury. It was my fault; I
cannoned into you. You behaved as only a man of your sort always does.
I won't say any more about it.
"By this time I hope you are freer from pain. The first two days are
the limit; I know from experience and two mended ribs. But--I hate to
think of you in bed this glorious autumn day--and the little fool who
sent you there idling in the sunshine of these lovely hills.
"Jim, dear, it is generous and entirely like you to ask us to make your
place our headquarters between engagements.
"If we do it, it will be only because we all would be happier en
famille. Even we, hardened materialists that we are, could not bring
ourselves to use you. You know that, don't you? So I have assumed that
your offer is not only a kindness, but a genuine expression of regard
for us; and we return to the full whatever you feel for us.
"Jim, there are many things that I am denying myself to say to you; and
I find self-denial hard. It's a worthy and laudable virtue which
Silvette and I are trying to acquire in our old age, and it isn't easy.
"There's no news. Mrs. Wemyss seems to have fascinated your friend, Mr.
Inwood. He's a curious sort of man--rather melancholy of temperament, I
fancy.
"We play a languid sort of polo now and then, dawdle in canoes, and sit
up too late at cards.
"A lot of men are coming for the shooting. Mr. Rivett's manager turned
out several thousand pheasants and Hungarian partridges, it seems. The
latter, they say, have vanished; the former seem disposed to wander into
the front yard.
"Mrs. Lorrimore has departed with much of Judge Wicklow's salary. Her
stouter and prettier friend, Mrs. Wemyss, despoiled almost everybody
except Silvette and me. This letter is degenerating into gossip. It
had to, or I might have been even more indiscreet.
"Jim, you are a good type of citizen when you're at your best. Let me
lecture you, won't you? Anyway, you're helpless and in bed and miles
away, and you can't prevent me.
"So--be yourself. Go into a man's business. Disregard your
accomplishments, your cleverness at paraphrasing art. It doesn't count
in real life, all this facility with paint and pen and paper--your gay
imitation of painter, writer, composer. They're little gifts,
Jim--meant for an hour of light leisure among the leisured--pleasant,
but unimportant accomplishments. When you court some nice girl, some
day, you'll understand their full value--which is to amuse her, and
later, I prophesy, the jolly little family of a home-returning business
man.
"The years are before you still, Jim. Open the battle when you're well
enough. You will win out, for you are really not the man I have known.
I wish I might have been a woman to bring out what you really are. Some
woman will. Meanwhile give a friendly hand and a generous lift to a
fellow who deserves your respect and consideration--your other self.
"Good-by and good luck.
"Your cousin,
"DIANA TENNANT."
In a few days Edgerton began to experience the intolerable sensations of
a bone which is mending itself.
He had become very restless and impatient; and, finally, the doctor let
him wear his arm in a sling and go out to hunt for a job.
He had no trouble in securing one--a small clerkship with Close & Co.,
ornamental iron work. He might have done even better. All iron men
knew who James Edgerton 3d must be. Many friends of the old firm of
Edgerton, Tennant & Co. might have offered him easier work and higher
salary, but he not only went to none of them--he even avoided them. He
had decided to discover what he really was worth.
It rather surprised him to find out that the big, blue-eyed, snub-nosed
Irishman, Mr. Dineen, whom he had met at Adriutha, was a director in
Close & Co. Later, he discovered that Mr. Dineen was also interested in
his own old firm, Edgerton, Tennant & Co., now reconstructed, but still
bearing the ancient name. And after a while he learned that Mr. Dineen
seemed to be interested in almost every house in New York that dealt in
structural or ornamental iron.
Edgerton's duties began with ledger work. And the evening that he drew
his first pay, he wrote Diana:
"DEAR Di:
"I'm getting fifteen dollars a week with Close & Co., ornamental iron.
I have my first week's wages in my pocket. As I pay no rent, I can live
on it.
"It's not uninteresting work. Somebody said something about my going
into the designing department as a draughtsman. That's pretty quick
advancement--if it comes. I'll let you know if it does.
"My arm is about well. It's still mummified, of course, but that
maddening sensation is gone. Town isn't so bad. Of course, it's rather
hot and dusty, and, as usual, it looks dingy and mean in its
characteristic October shabbiness--meaner for the glorious blue overhead
and the pitiless sun exposing its few withered trees and its many
architectural shams in the remorseless light of high heaven.
"But I am peculiarly happy. I have no servant; I dine at a French
restaurant for seventy-five cents, and I prepare my own breakfast in the
studio. Crackers and milk compose my luncheon at the price of ten
pennies. And I never felt better. All this in case you are interested
in such details.
"To answer your letter--I did not intend to write until I had nailed
down a job and received my first pay envelope. Now I feel that I may.
"First, regarding your comments upon my artistic ability, you are
perfectly right. I ought to have known it; I did know it, deep inside
of me. I'm not the stuff that artists are made of. Eviter les
contrefacons! I was an imitation. I was not even a good amateur; I'm
not even equipped to really appreciate the best work in others. All I
had was a monkey-like cleverness and the blank facility of a receptive
parrot; and I was idiot enough to contemplate an idle life of dabbling
and fiddling with professions that better men dignify.
"I tell you, Di, I bid fair to turn into one of those horrors--a
cultivated talker!--the lowest type of incompetent. Drawing-rooms,
studios, cafes are full of them, all telling one another what is what
and how to do it. I was heading straight that way. My peers and
companions would have been smatterers, instructors in arts which the
instructors couldn't master--or they wouldn't have become
instructors!--men of one picture, or none at all; of one book, one
story, or of none at all, or of dozens, all still in their minds, or in
unpublished manuscripts; men of one waltz, or several grand operas--I
mean ideas for grand operas--all failures, all men who had mistaken
their professions, self-deceived men, incompetent, hopeless, pitiable.
"You said in your letter that one day I might meet a woman who could
appreciate, at their real value, my very slim talents. Haven't I met
her, Di? Those clear eyes of yours pierced the flimsy fabric long
since; the trenchant sweetness of your tongue cut more than one knot for
me.
"If you demur, my answer is that I am here. Who sent me? A flanneled
satrap, already insidiously beguiled by idleness, already reconciled to
the status quo--how long before, and by what process of evolution, would
my real self have awakened? Or would the degeneracy have ended only
with life?
"I don't know; all I know is that you sent me about my business in the
world. I walked to it in my sleep; awake, I follow it. Thus far, so
far, Diana of the far white gods!
"Yours is the stronger character, so far. Let us await events. It may
be, as you say, that the years will twist my path toward the possible
woman you predict for me. I dined with Dr. Ellis last evening. His
daughter will certainly grow up to be such a woman as you and I delight
in. I told her that I hoped my path would twist toward her. She said
she hoped so, too, very shyly. She is only fifteen--alas!
"In the meanwhile my path runs straight to Close & Co., and I shall
continue to travel it every day with my shovel and dinner pail--thanks
to you, my loyal little cousin, who were plucky enough and merciful
enough to tell me the merciless truth.
"Give my love to Silvette. My remembrances to all. Accept for yourself
my friendship. Do you remember those photographs I made of you as
Japonette the day after we first met? I've developed them. Here is
one.
"Yours sincerely,
"JAMES EDGERTON 3d."
Which letter resulted in an immediate interchange of notes:
"DEAR JIM:
"Fifteen and eighteen are not far apart. A man can help Chance to twist
his path through life. The resulting route is called the Path of
Destiny. I think you have already started to travel it. I hope you are
better.
"DIANA."
He replied:
"DEAR DI:
"You meant that path which leads to Close & Co., didn't you?
"J. E. 3d."
She answered:
"DEAR JIM:
"No, I meant the other path you mentioned. Follow it for the next three
years. Mr. Inwood says that little Miss Ellis is the most beautiful and
winsome and intelligent and cultivated child he ever knew. Life is all
before you, Jim.
"DIANA."
He wrote:
"I'm in the designing department as draughtsman! Mr. Rivett's friend,
Mr. Dineen, dropped in to have a chat with me. He's a very decent
fellow.... You don't think that Mr. Rivett has inspired him to show me
any unmerited favors, do you? It would make havoc of my present
complacency. Try to find out.
"JIM."
She answered:
"Mr. Rivett isn't to be pumped. I tried it. I'll never try it again.
Anyway, Jim, no favor can inject brains into a man; it can only
stimulate what intellect he has. Don't worry about favors. Neither Mr.
Rivett nor Mr. Dineen are the men to injure their own affairs by the
incompetent service of others. You can be perfectly certain that you
are worth what is offered you if they have anything to do with it.
"Why don't you fall in love with Christine? She's one of the sweetest
girls I ever knew. I supposed she and you were on delightful terms
once. Also, once, I thought she was inclined toward Mr. Inwood. But he
seems to be monopolized by Mrs. Wemyss; and the poor child comes into my
room in a forlorn sort of way--so white and limp these days that I'm
wondering what this change in her means. _Does_ it mean your absence?
You'd tell me, wouldn't you? But I know you're not the sort of man to
win a young girl's heart, and then coolly walk out of her life. It
looks to me as though she had something on her mind. Dr. Billings has
been here several times, and her mother is worried sick.
"That's all the gossip, except that the shooting is in full blast here.
A number of men came up for it--the usual sort of men who shoot, except
one. He's a Mr. Wallace, and very nice and a poor shot. He and I go
out together sometimes, and he is forever making fun of himself and his
perfectly rotten marksmanship, and he and I don't care two raps whether
we get anything or not.
"Mr. Inwood is the saddest young man I ever had the pleasure (?) of
trying to animate. Are all your friends as melancholy and
temperamental? He haunts the terrace like a lost soul until Mrs. Wemyss
annexes him. Christine does not seem to care for him; she doesn't seem
to care for anybody these days.
"Colonel Curmew is a funny man. He has, apparently, devoted himself to
me, and I have the greatest difficulty in getting away from him long
enough to take a stroll with Mr. Wallace. Such a funny, strutty,
sentimentally elaborate little man!--with a rather horrid habit of
staring. But he's a crack shot, and popular here with the men.
"Good night,
"DIANA."
She wrote next day, also:
"Jim! My little Christine is in love--that's what's the matter! I
_know_ it; I'm absolutely sure of it. And with--oh, ye humorous gods
and dryads!--with your melancholy friend, Mr. Inwood.
"And I want to tell you, Jim, that I don't _like_ Mrs. Wemyss. She's
fat and selfish and--why does she drag that boy about with her all the
time? I don't believe he likes it. I don't believe he's so enamored of
her. Maybe his low spirits come from too much of that fair and ample
lady. I'm going to find out. I won't have my little Christine ignored
by any melancholy idiot who ever lived.
"Write me what you know about Mr. Inwood.
"How is Chance, and the twisted path, and little Miss Ellis?
"Scott Wallace and I managed to shoot a grouse. We both fired, and
neither of us were inclined to claim the poor, dead, little thing. A
keeper put it in his pocket. Mr. Wallace and I are going to take up
target shooting hereafter.
"DIANA."
He wrote: "Inwood is all right. Who _is_ Mrs. Wemyss?
"JIM."
A week later he heard from her: "I've found out from people in Keno.
She was a Mrs. Atherstane--divorced hubby, and resumed her maiden name
of Wemyss with the prefix Mrs. Did you ever hear of her? Scott Wallace
and I detest her.
"DIANA."
He did not reply, partly because the constant recurrence of Wallace's
name in her letters had begun to annoy him--partly because what he had
to say must be said to Inwood; and at that miserable young man he
launched the following:
"DEAR BILLY:
"You're a fine specimen. What are you, anyway--a lap dog or a Chow pup?
Get rid of that woman! I don't care whether or not you made an ass of
yourself over her by sympathizing with her. Old Atherstane had no more
mistresses than the majority of church pillars and public benefactors in
town; and, anyway, it was not up to you to dry her weeps.
"Don't make any mistake--the ci-devant Mrs. Atherstane can look out for
herself. She needs no consideration from you; she doesn't deserve any,
either. What kind of a woman is she, anyhow--taking advantage of a
chivalrous and conscientious boy who never did more than hold her hand
and pat it, at most, when she told him she was lonely and unhappy, and
needed a good man's moral support?
"Rot! You're not responsible for her. You're not in honor bound to sit
around and await her pleasure, now that she's free to marry. She
wouldn't have you, anyway.
"You probably made an ass of yourself--probably talked too much. You're
not in honor bound, I tell you. And don't make any mistake--she's not
going to marry. She's having too good a time. I know that kind of
woman, Billy. They never put their heads into the noose a second time;
but they harpoon all the men they can, and they trail around with a lot
of silly ginks like you.
"If you don't believe me, I'll tell you how to put yourself out of your
misery. Ask her to marry you; ask her flatly. You'll wake up, then. I
know what I'm saying. You do what I tell you, and then get back to
first principles, and clear up all this nightmare between a sweet and
plucky little girl and your own dam-fool self. Clear it up, I tell you.
I know you, Billy. You have nothing to confess in regard to Mrs.
Wemyss. Of course, you wouldn't confess, anyway; but, thank God!
there's nothing to say except that you were a silly ass, and have
learned better.
"Now, I've told you how to get clear of this petty and miserable affair.
If you don't do it, for Christine's sake as well as for your own, you're
no man.
"JIM EDGERTON."
*CHAPTER XI*
*QUOD ERAT FACIENDUM*
With the daily advent of men arriving for the flight-shooting, now
imminent, Lillian Wemyss seemed to grow prettier and slimmer every day
until the perfectly visible metamorphosis had produced radiant and
brand-new creature.
For the men who were now accumulating in billiard room and card room,
who haunted stable and garage and kennel, were the sort of men who
inspired the very breath of life in a woman of her sort--big, handsome,
ruddy-faced, thick-necked men with large, indiscriminating tastes and an
eternal readiness for anything from a half-broken horse to an unbroken
woman, but heartily preferring them both bridlewise and registered.
They tramped all over the place, on the terrace, over the lawn, in to
dinner; and the house echoed with large bantering voices, loud unfeigned
laughter--and they rode hard and drank hard and played for heavy stakes,
and were up and tramping all over the place by sunrise, sniffing for the
frost which would bring the first night flight of woodcock from the
north into the far-famed coverts of the Adriutha hills.
And the best-looking, most humorous, and most reckless among them was
Scott Wallace, a young giant of infinite jest, who began by pleasing
himself with Diana and, out of the sheer perversity of humorous animal
spirits, pretended to her that he scarcely knew one end of a shotgun
from the other, which gave him a pretext for dawdling over the country
with her, and making love to her until such time as the flight might
send him seriously afield.
So, as he cared nothing for the scattered pheasants and wilder and
scarcer grouse, he amused himself and Diana by playing Winkle, now and
then consoling himself with a difficult shot, which satisfied him and
left the girl none the wiser.
But on Wallace Mrs. Wemyss had her blue eyes fixed with all the veiled
alertness and objectless intensity of the sort of woman she was--a woman
who would never be dunce enough to marry again.
In the meanwhile, already exceedingly popular with the shooting
fraternity, she kept a mechanical hold on Inwood for no more reason than
the matter-of-fact impulse which had prompted her to snap a leash on his
collar the moment she set eyes on him after many months' separation.
To take him away from Christine had not been her object; she had no idea
that he was interested in anybody except herself. She was perfectly
confident that, given half a chance, men preferred her to any other
woman; and there was really no particular malice in her desire to give
Scott Wallace an opportunity to follow at her heels instead of Diana's.
For Mrs. Wemyss really needed nothing of men except admiration and
uninterrupted attention. No deeper passion had ever moved her. She was
ignorant of love, although apparently fashioned for it; immune to its
lawlessness, although lid and ear and lip seemed to chorus the contrary.
In the slightly veiled eyes there was really no promise, no significance
in the full, sweet mouth--nothing to her except the superficial
provocation which all men mistook, and the laughing and ready friendship
offered so prettily that no man ever refused.
Inwood, searching the house and terrace over for Christine, discovering
her at last in the moonlit rose garden, and, not daring to join her
after all, so faint hearted he had become, walked moodily into the
billiard room where a noisy lot of people were enjoying themselves.
Wallace, standing between Diana and Lillian Wemyss, his broad back
against a billiard table, was evidently having a splendid time; and
Inwood halted, irresolute, one hand in his pocket crushing Edgerton's
letter into a wad.
Lillian Wemyss caught sight of him, smiled instinctively, but her blue
eyes reverted to Wallace. There was something in her attitude, as she
stood in the full splendor of her somewhat ample beauty, that subtly
repelled Inwood; and he swung on his heel, somber young head bent,
moving toward the door by which he had entered.
"Mr. Inwood!" called Diana across the hubbub, "will you play bottle pool
with us?"
He turned, smiling to her.
"Thanks, I'm not up to it," and resumed his way out.
"Billy!" said Mrs. Wemyss, "I wish you to play!"
"No, thanks," he returned coolly, and continued toward the door.
It was his first exhibition of insubordination, and Lillian Wemyss,
surprised, did not propose to stand it, particularly in the presence of
these two people. Scott Wallace seemed to be almost ready for his
leash; it was a bad example for him, this insubordination of young
Inwood.
She looked anxiously at Diana.
"I'm afraid Billy Inwood is not well," she said. "I've thought so for
several days. Those swamps where you men shoot must be full of malaria."
"Not a bit," said Wallace, laughing.
"How do you know?" asked Diana. "You never go into them, you lazy
thing!"
Mrs. Wemyss hesitated, listening to the banter that passed between Diana
and Scott Wallace, which slightly excluded her for the moment.
Then she made up her mind that her authority over Inwood must be
asserted at once, and that she had time enough to eliminate Diana later.
She turned and saw Inwood passing the windows outside on the terrace.
The next moment she was on the terrace, too, and he turned slowly to
confront her.
"Billy," she said gently, "are you feeling perfectly well?"
"Perfectly, thanks."
"Then why didn't you remain at my request?"
"I didn't care to."
"But _I_ asked you," she said, surprised.
"Yes, I know you did."
"Well?" she asked, astonished.
He had been looking away from her out over the misty moonlit river. Now
he turned.
"Lillian," he said, "do you honestly care for me?"
"Billy, what a question!"
"Yes, it's one kind of question.... _Do_ you?"
"You know I do. How can you ask such a----"
"Do you _love_ me?
"What!"
"_Do_ you?"
"Billy, what on earth is----"
"Wait, please. Let me ask you again, Lillian. Are you honestly in love
with me?"
"I don't know what you mean by suddenly and abruptly
questioning--demanding----"
"Please answer."
"You have no right to doubt it. You know perfectly well what we have
been to each other--even before----"
"What _have_ we been?"
"I supposed we had been in love," she said with sad dignity. "I wrote
you while I was abroad, and--I don't write many letters."
"Then you _are_ in love with me.... We are in love. Is that true as
you understand it?"
"You silly boy--of course!"
He stood stock still for a moment, tasting all the misery he had stored
up for himself. Finally, he found his voice.
"If that is so," he said, "we ought to be engaged."
"Oh, Billy! Are you jealous?"
She laughed, radiant, delighted to feel the leash tighten in her soft
little hand once more.
"No," he said, "I am not jealous; but, if we are to marry, it is time
people understood it."
"Do you mean these people?"
"I mean everybody."
"You don't mean to announce our engagement this winter?" she asked
uneasily.
"I mean to announce it now."
"Here!"
"Here--to-night."
"I--I don't wish to," she faltered. "You are unreasonable."
"Is there any reason why people shouldn't know it?"
"My dear boy, one doesn't announce such important matters on the impulse
of the moment."
"If I'm going to marry you, I want people to know it now!" he said.
"I've explained that I did not wish it."
"Why?"
"Why? There are a million perfectly good reasons."
"Give me one, Lillian."
She stood considering, her crook'd finger under her chin, blue eyes
taking his measure from time to time. Evidently happiness too long
deferred had made him unmanageable. She never thought of doubting her
power. Probably he needed discipline. It was most annoying to be
annoyed at such a time, with all these men here, and Scott Wallace
already left too long alone with Diana at the billiard table.
Discipline was certainly what Inwood needed.
"Billy," she said, "come in and play bottle pool."
"Am I to tell them that we are to be married?"
"No," she said petulantly.
"When may I tell them?"
"Not at all. Do you think a year of liberty is sufficient for a woman
who has suffered what I have? I don't wish to marry you or
anybody--yet. I haven't made up my mind to do it at all," she added
with a tiny flash of rare anger, for her not very sensitive nerves were
beginning to feel the pressure.
"Lillian, I want to know now. It is only square to me to----"
"Billy, if you continue to insist, you will end by seriously offending
me. You have annoyed me enough already."
"By asking you to set a definite date for our impending marriage?"
"It is _not_ impending!" she retorted, exasperated, as Diana and Wallace
came out together and walked toward the farther end of the terrace.
"Do you refuse to marry me?"
"Yes, I do; I am sorry. I really cannot help how you feel about it.
This year of liberty has been a year of happiness. I don't wish to
marry. I don't know when I may wish to. I am perfectly contented; and
that's the truth, Billy."
"So--you refuse me?"
"For the present--yes."
"No; you must answer me for all time, to-night."
She nodded. "Very well, then; I refuse definitely--and for all time....
And, Billy Inwood, you have brought this calamity upon yourself."
But Lillian's anger was always short-lived; she was already sorry for
him. Besides, she was convinced that he would continue to dangle. It
had been her experience with men that they were never reconciled to the
unobtainable.
So with one of her swift, smiling changes of feeling she held out her
hand to Inwood. He took it.
"Are you very angry?" she asked.
"No."
"Do we part--friends?"
"We do, indeed," he said so sincerely that the smile faded on her face,
and into her limited mind flickered a momentary doubt. But, no, it was
not possible; for Lillian had never really been able to doubt herself.
Certain, once more, that this young man would appear at heel when
whistled for, she returned his friendly pressure with an encouraging
one, laughed, and turned lightly toward the house. He accompanied her to
the door and bowed her in.
Then the strength seemed to ooze out of his back and legs; he dropped on
to a marble bench, and sat there in the moonlight, his face buried in
his hands.
How long he had been there he did not know, when a light touch and a
soft voice close to his ear aroused him, and, looking up, he saw Diana
inspecting him.
"As dejected as all that, Mr. Inwood?" she asked, as he rose to his
feet.
"Not dejected, Miss Tennant."
"Why, then, these attitude? Wherefore those woe, young sir?"
"I don't know," he said listlessly.
But she did--or thought she did; so she took his arm in friendly fashion
and strolled about with him in the moonlight until she pretended that
the beauty of the night tempted her toward the garden.
He was alarmed for an instant, and hung back, scanning the rose garden
with anxious eyes; but he could see nothing of Christine, and presently
succumbed to Diana's whim.
To and fro among the late roses they paced, the girl light-heartedly
rallying him on his soberness and lack of animation, until he laughed a
little and squared his shoulders, and drew in a full deep breath of the
soft air.
"I thought every man flirted if offered an opportunity," said Diana,
"but I've flung myself at your head in vain, young man. Evidently
there's some caterpillar at work on that damask cheek, or I'd be more
generously appreciated."
He laughed again, and tried to tell her how deeply he was appreciating
her, but she shook her head and finally dropped his arm.
"I'm going to the house," she said. "There's an arbor across the garden.
If you'll wait for me there, perhaps I'll return. Will you?"
"Certainly," he said.
So she turned and sped away among the roses, and he stood and watched
her until she crossed the terrace and vanished into the house.
For a few minutes he remained where he was standing; then, with a sigh,
he swung on his heel and started toward the arbor, fumbling for his
cigarette case as he walked.
At the entrance he paused to strike a light--and remained motionless
until the match burned close to his fingers. Then it fell on the
gravel; he dropped the cigarette beside it.
As he entered the arbor, a white figure, lying full length on a swinging
seat, lifted its head from its arms, then sat up hastily.
"Is that you, Miss Rivett?"
"Yes." ... She rose to her feet, holding to one of the swinging chains.
Moonlight fell across her white, confused face.
"May I remain?" he asked unsteadily. "Would you rather have me go?"
"No.... I am going.... My gown is damp.... I will go immediately."
"Were you asleep?"
She hesitated; but there was in her only honesty.
"No," she said.
"Then you must have heard my step on the gravel?"
She shook her head.
"Then what were you doing out here all alone with your head buried in
your arms?"
"Thinking," she said.... "Would you care to walk to the house with me,
Mr. Inwood?"
"Would you mind remaining here a little while?"
"My gown is damp with dew."
"Then perhaps we had better go?"
"I think so."
Neither stirred.
"It is so warm and beautiful to-night," he said, "that I can't imagine
anybody taking cold out here."
"It is a bad outlook for the flight shooters."
"Yes, indeed. There is no frost in this wind."
"It may shift overnight," she said. "If to-morrow is a magnificent and
cloudless day, with just a hint of silver in the horizon blue, then it
means a frost and a flight to-morrow night."
"And that," he said, "would mean an end to--the roses."
"Yes."
"An end to anybody sitting out here again this year."
"Probably."
"So it seems a pity," he went on, "not to enjoy it while we may, Miss
Rivett."
"I have enjoyed it--for an hour."
"You are not very generous."
"Why? You may remain another hour if you wish?" she said, smiling.
"Alone?"
"I was alone during my hour."
"I have been alone for an entire year," he said under his breath.
"What?"
She had heard him, but her abrupt question seemed to have been beaten
out sharply from her startled heart.
He made no reply; she stood, one hand clasping the chain, not looking at
him, conscious of the clamor of her heart.
"Miss Rivett," he said, "am I too much of a fool--too hopeless a thing
for you to listen to?"
"What do you mean?" she said faintly.
"I mean that--this night, now, for the first time since I knew you--I
can use, decently, honorably, whatever liberty of speech you permit me."
Presently her white hand relaxed, the chain slipped through her fingers;
she sank down on the swinging seat.
After a moment he stepped toward her. She raised her head in the
moonlight, and he saw the tears in her eyes.
"Christine," he said under his breath.
"Are we free to speak to each other?" she faltered.
"Thank God, yes!"
"Thank God," she whispered.
But for a long, long while they did not use the inestimable privilege of
free, articulate speech. There seemed to be no need of it further than
apparently irrelevant fragments such as, "My darling!" and, "Oh, Billy,
if you only knew!"
Far away beyond them Diana came out on the terrace with young Wallace,
and gazed very earnestly down at the rose garden.
"Shall we walk there?" he said persuasively.
[Illustration: "'Oh, dear,' she said, 'there's somebody down there
already.'"]
Suddenly Diana's face sparkled. "Oh, dear," she said, "there's somebody
down there already--two of them! And--and it looks to me as though they
were spooning. What a world this is, Mr. Wallace! I think I'd better
go in and play bottle pool."
That night she wrote to Edgerton:
"DEAR JIM:
"You have not answered my letter--but men were made to pardon.
"Somehow--and I don't quite know how--that wretched and melancholy
Inwood man, fortified by a gentle push from me, contrived to get up
sufficient momentum to carry my little Christine by assault. The
darling has just been in here to whisper her happiness to me. We wept
together, which is our feminine fashion of uttering three cheers.
"There is, of course, papa to inform. I don't envy Christine. Papa has
a will of his own, but so has his infant daughter.
"Even yet I can't understand why this Inwood boy has lost all this time
dingling and dangling around Mrs. Wemyss. Evidently he wasn't doing it
because he was having a good time. I was inclined to suppose him either
blighted or a mooner.
"But you should see the change in your intimate friend _now_! Why, Jim,
he fairly pranced up to me as I was saying good night, and he wrung my
hand and said, 'Thanks, awf'lly, Miss Tennant!' And all I had done was
to give him a rendezvous with me in an arbor, and then go off to walk
with Scott Wallace.
"Scott's a nice boy. You'd like him; he's a terrible tease. It seems
that he's really a dead wing shot, and has just been jollying me all
this time. I really enjoy him, which is more than I can say for the
remainder of the sporting fraternity now investing this place. They're a
hard young lot, without, perhaps, being really very hard; but they are a
loud, careless, irresponsible bunch of wealthy young men who, as far as
I can learn, spend their entire time in shooting at something or other,
including clay birds.
"They seem to be Wall Street men when occupied at all, and all betray a
very healthy respect for Mr. Rivett. People say he is a factor to be
reckoned with in New York; but I don't care. He's nice to me, and his
wife is adorable. As for Christine, I dearly love her, Jim. No girl is
more fitted for happiness, and I'm glad she's got her Inwood boy at
last.
"And now, Jim, dear, there are two matters which very sorely perplex me;
and, somehow, I turn to you to help me solve them.... No, only one of
them, because I shall not bother about the other matter yet.
"But about the matter which is really nearer my heart, Jim--we must
leave this place; and the reason is this: Jack Rivett is making himself
miserable over Silvette.
"Silvette doesn't love him; at least, I don't think she does. She
couldn't do it honorably, anyway. She told me so, and I quite see it,
because she and I are employed here under the Rivetts' roof, practically
in a position of trust, and dedicated to their service.
"It is not a loyal thing to permit the son of the house to lose his
head, and Silvette tries so hard not to let him. But he's doing it, and
she can't keep him from being nice to her; and she and I know perfectly
well what his father's plans for him are, and that they include a
fashionable marriage.
"Of course, that argues well for Christine. The Inwoods are fashionable
people, are they not? But poor Silvie! Alas! her connection with your
race isn't near enough to impress Jack's father; besides, Silvette
doesn't love him, and the boy is in a bad way all around.
"Now, what ought we to do? If we offer to sever social and business
relations with Mr. Rivett, he will ask why we do it.
"Shall we tell him? Is that square to poor Jack? Or shall we lie? Or
shall we simply remain and let Jack suffer and make Silvie miserable?
"Oh, wise young sir, inform a suppliant at your knee!
"There is nothing more to tell you about, except that your progress
makes me very happy. You are doing only what you would ultimately have
done without any impudent advice from me. You have found yourself, Jim;
you are climbing the rungs very quickly.
"Jim, I am not yet very old--but I might easily be younger.... I was
thinking the other day--and to-night--that sometime I shall be too old
and unattractive to practice this not very dignified profession; and I'm
disinclined to do anything more strenuous. I don't want to struggle and
grub and starve along respectably as a feminine physician. It's too
late for that, anyway.
"So I don't know what to do, ultimately, unless I accomplish what I
started out to do--marry a wealthy man. I mean the first agreeable one
I encounter.
"Well, I won't bother with that problem to-night; my head aches a
little.
"Good night, Jim.
"JAPONETTE."
Diana finished her letter, sealed and stamped it, and kissed the
superscription. She always did when she wrote his name.
Then she laid her aching temples on her arms and, leaning limply on the
desk, thought about him.
Hers was a strange, sweet pride in him--a fierce jealousy lest he should
not take the place in the world to which he was entitled, and prove
himself every inch a man.
Nor did she pretend to hide from herself what his return among his own
friends must ultimately mean. If the love he had offered her had not
been totally extinguished by her light mockery and smiling insolence,
then this return to his own set would do it ultimately. The standards
that measured women there would be fatal to her; nor could he choose but
apply them, sooner or later.
She knew this when she sent him back among his own sort. She realized
perfectly that if any love for her survived her irony and flippancy--her
airy but trenchant scorn--it could not survive very long when he came to
his cool-headed and reasoning self, and looked around him at the women,
and at the families and relatives of the women among whom he had always
lived.
Already he had spoken of little Aliss Ellis--a mere child, of
course--yet--yet it was a straw prophesying a change in the wind to her.
She knew; she had accomplished what she had desired. She had done this
thing to herself, to her whole life, for his sake. What more could she
wish for?
Sick at heart, she lifted her throbbing head and kissed his name once
more where she had written it on the envelope. Then she placed it on
the desk, and lay down on the bed to wait for Silvette before ringing
for the maid who attended them; and after a little while she fell
asleep.
*CHAPTER XII*
*NUNC AUT NUNQUAM*
Warm weather continued; no flight occurred. The men thrashed about with
the dogs after grouse and a few native woodcock bred in the willows
along the river, or rode, motored, and played cards. One or two had to
give up, and return to the city.
Colonel Curmew was at his best on these gay occasions--gallant, jocose,
busy, everybody's friend, including Jack Rivett's, who quietly began to
hate him.
In the midst of the general tension and expectancy concerning the
long-awaited flight, Christine one morning entered her father's study
and found the author of her being conferring with Mr. Dineen.
"This won't do, Christine," he said. "I'm busy."
"No, it won't do," she admitted, looking so significantly at Mr. Dineen
that the jolly, big Irishman laughed.
"_You_ want _me_ to go out!" he said, shaking an enormous forefinger at
her.
"Please--for a few minutes."
"Sure," said Mr. Dineen with an amused glance at Rivett, who sat
inspecting his offspring with a face entirely devoid of expression.
When the big Mr. Dineen had closed the door behind him, Christine, a
trifle pale, walked resolutely to her father and laid her hand on his
shoulder.
"Dad?"
"What?"
"I've practically asked Billy Inwood to marry me."
Her father's eyes bored through and through her.
"Who did the asking, Chrissy?"
"Both of us."
"What?" he barked.
"It wasn't asking, exactly. I have loved him for a year, and he has
loved me. There has been a misunderstanding."
"About what?"
His daughter's eyes never flinched.
"About a point of honor, father," she said quietly.
He grunted.
She went on, still resting her hand on his shoulder.
"We were very unhappy; but the point of honor involved straightened
itself out.... I happened to be in the rose arbor that evening. He came
in by accident.... After we had talked a little, he told me that he was
free to speak if I would listen to him.... Then, somehow, we merely
looked at each other, and--and presently--presently we kissed each
other.... I don't remember much else ... except that I said I would
marry him--before he asked me----"
"Did you also set the date?" inquired her father sarcastically.
"No.... Mother and I are considering.... Are you happy over it, dad?"
"Not violently."
"Why?"
"I don't know anything about him," he snapped.
"Yes, you know that I'm in love with him."
"Certainly; of course. Very worthy young man, no doubt."
"Also," continued his daughter calmly, "you know that Jim Edgerton is
his closest friend."
"That," said Rivett, "counts some."
"And mother likes him," concluded the girl.
Her father sat staring at her in silence. Suddenly she put her arms
around his neck, and the little man hid his spectacles on her breast for
a second.
"Thank you, dad, darling," she whispered.
"Chrissy--Chrissy--so soon! I wanted you awhile yet." ... He jerked his
head free, produced a handkerchief, and began busily to polish his
eyeglasses.
"All right," he said brusquely, "I'll talk it over with your mother....
She knows.... She knows more than I do. They wouldn't believe that in
Wall Street, but it's true."
"Dad?"
"Yes, child."
"Couldn't we live with you and mother?"
"Sure. D'you think I'd let any young jackanapes take you entirely away?
You tell him I'll scalp him if he talks that kind of thing to you." ...
He laughed harshly. "But I'm a fool, Chrissy; you and I are talking
foolish.... You won't come back to stay. You won't want to."
"I will!"
"No, dear; you don't know yet.... Your mother and I made our own home.
It was a rough one, Chrissy, but it was ours. You'll do the same
ultimately. It's part of the game.... Tell your young man to come
here."
The girl slipped away; in a few moments Inwood knocked and entered. Mr.
Rivett gave him a level and murderous look.
"How about that complication you got yourself into?" he asked harshly.
Inwood turned scarlet.
"I'm out of it."
"With honor?"
"Honorably."
"What was it?"
"You don't mean to ask me that?"
"Yes, I do! ... But I didn't expect an answer.... Can you support my
little girl decently?"
"Decently."
"Not in the style to which I have accustomed her?"
"No, sir."
"All right," he snapped.
After a silence the young fellow said:
"Do you disapprove of me?"
"How the devil can I? I don't know you. If you make my little girl a
good husband, I'll love you like a son; if you don't, I'll--kill you.
You _look_ all right; but there's no use talking.... You show me what
stuff you're made of, and I'll do my part."
"All right," said Inwood, smiling.
Something in his smile interested Rivett.
"Was your mother a Lawrence?" he demanded suddenly.
"She was born Elizabeth Lawrence."
"Betty Lawrence," he repeated, staring at the younger man.
"Did you know her?" asked Inwood.
"I taught her in school.... Betty Lawrence.... Only two people ever
smiled like that--you and your mother.... You have good blood in you,
Inwood.... I know your father--in Wall Street. We are on good
terms.... Don't ever be a fool again, will you?"
"No, sir."
They shook hands seriously. As Inwood left, Dineen came in.
Rivett looked at Dineen without speaking for a full minute, then he said
slowly:
"My daughter is going to be married."
"God bless my soul!" ejaculated the big Irishman--"not _that_ child!"
"Yes; I guess she means business, John."
"When?--in the name of the saints!"
"When she's ready, I presume.... She's a good girl.... They're good
children. They've stayed as long as they could. Their time is nearly
up.... But the smallest hut is a big barn when the children have taken
wing.... I wish I could have seen more of my father and mother.... But
I had to go out into a lean world and hunt a living."
"The best of us have passed that way," observed Dineen; and, after a
moment: "Who's the lucky divil, Jacob?"
"Young Inwood."
"Stuart Inwood's boy?"
"That's the one."
Dineen lit a cigar and, drawing it into vaporous action, ruminated with
enormous thumbs joined.
"It's good stock," he said, finally; "none better betwixt the Bowling
Green and Patroon Van Courtlandt's old shebang. There's money, too; and
an opera box and a bit of a shack at Newport. What kind of a lad is
it?"
"He can look me in the face," said Rivett. "Otherwise he looks like
everybody else of his sort, and probably resembles them, too. Ah!"--he
broke out angrily--"these sleek-headed, tailor-made, smooth-faced young
pups from New York, with their pleasant manners when they want anything,
and their ways and means and by-ways and ten-cent brains--God! Dineen,
do they really ever turn into men? Answer me that! You've lived long
enough to see a new-born snob grow to be thirty. Do they ever turn into
anything except the harmless fools they're born?"
Dineen slowly revolved his thumbs and squinted at a sunbeam, while the
smoke from the cigar in his cheek rose to the ceiling in a straight,
thin column.
[Illustration: "Dineen slowly revolved his thumbs and squinted at a
sunbeam."]
"Some of them become men," he said deliberately. "The most o' them is
born spots and rots; or, if they're not, college addles 'em. But, God be
praised! if it wasn't for them the good people of Reno, Palm Beach, and
Paris, France, would starve entirely.... Jacob, they say there's a use
even for the San Jose scale; and cursing would become a lost art barring
the mosquito."
"What do you know about young Inwood?" asked Rivett.
"Nothing; he's a broker."
"Then we've nothing to learn, I guess," said Rivett dryly, "unless he
gets into the papers.... Well, my wife likes him.... She's always
right, John. I'll go and talk to her presently.... What were you
saying about young Edgerton before my daughter came?"
"I said that he's the same as all the Edgertons. By jimmy! I started
him on ink wells to see would he stand for it, and he was there every
morning at seven; and he cleaned those ink wells and desks till nobody
knew them--with his busted arm and all. Then I set him at the ledgers,
and I let him stew for a week. A week was enough to see a good man
wasting his fist and eyes at fifteen per.
"'G'wan into the designing room,' I said to him, using Doolan as meejum
for my remarks; and I let him stew there with his compass and his
tracing paper, doping out the work of worse than he.
"Then I gave Williamson the kitty-wink. 'Give us a pair of gates for a
gentleman's estate,' said Williamson, very damn polite, knowing who was
backin' the lad for a place.... They're using the sketch now."
"I told you so," said Rivett calmly.
"Ah, go on! I told you so! Let it go at that, Jacob. So I talked to
Everly, and Everly sent him into the laboratory. When he isn't there
he's nosing around the shops, or asking questions of Cost and McCorkle
over in Jersey, or he's investigating the Holmes Construction plant."
"He's got his eye on the game."
"Sure; it's in him. There's iron in every Edgerton. They're all full
of ore. He's taken longer to open his eyes than the usual litter,
that's all.... Got playing the art game, you say--like a kitten with a
paper ball.... There's art in him, too, I guess. Those gates were all
right.... But--you mean to give him his chance?"
Rivett nodded. "I am Edgerton, Tennant & Co. I'd like to have Edgerton
go back there some day.... They were square people.... I might have
used them a little easier.... My wife likes Edgerton.... She wishes
it."
"She wants him to have his chance," mused Dineen.
"What she wants, _I_ want," said Rivett.... "And I might have been
easier on Edgerton, Tennant & Co.... I would have been--if we hadn't
needed the plant."
Dineen nodded gravely.
"Sure! A poor corporal of industry like you, Jake, needs what he can
pick up out o' the ash can."
For a full minute neither spoke. A slight flush faded from Rivett's
cheek bones.
"You damned Irishman," he said, wincing, "when are you going back?"
"To-night, I think.... There's an ash can I haven't raked over--the
Carrol-Baker Company."
"You'd better fix that," said Rivett dryly; "there may be a lump of slag
or two we can use for filling in ballast."
Dineen winked, rose, deposited the ashes from his cigar on the window
ledge, and sauntered forth--to meet Jack walking swiftly and firmly
toward his father's study.
"Hello, young man!" exclaimed Dineen, "is the house afire, or has the
brown jug below run dry?"
"No fear," said the young man, smiling, but continuing on his way.
Dineen looked after him with shrewd, blue eyes.
"I'm a monkey," he said to himself, "if that young man isn't on some
such errand as took his sister to the same place an hour ago. If he is,
God help him! for Jacob's still sore all over with the news from the
front stoop."
Jack knocked, and his father, who had settled himself for five minutes'
hard thinking, rapped out: "Who's there?"
"It's Jack. May I come in?"
"Come on," said his father grimly, "I am--" but catching sight of his
son's face he stopped short.
"Father?"
"What?" snapped Rivett senior, instinctively squaring his shoulders.
"May I talk to you as two men ought to talk together, or must I assume
the attitude of a child to its father?"
"Talk as you feel. I had a notion that you were still my son--maybe I'm
mistaken. In that case you may try to bully me if you care to. Go on."
"I didn't mean that, dad."
"I know you didn't; but you've come in here with your mind already made
up that I won't do what you want me to do. That's no good, Jack. Go
into everything cocksure that you'll win out. It's the only way you
stand any chance at all. Proceed."
The boy sat down and gazed absently out of the window; after a few
moments he turned his head and looked at his father.
"Dad," he said, "I'm in love."
Rivett senior regarded him in angry amazement, for a second only; then
the grim mask of a face resumed its weasel-eyed and expressionless
immobility.
"Babies have to go through teething, too," he observed.
Jack said pleasantly: "Wouldn't you rather I came to you and told you
about it?"
"Yes; a boy is all right who tells his parents. Who is the girl?"
"Silvette."
An unaccustomed color dyed Mr. Rivett's pallid temples.
"Oh! Have you informed her?"
"Yes."
Rivett's teeth met under the walrus mustache, parted, met, and ground
together; but his son saw only the jaw muscles move slightly in the lean
face.
"Silvette is a--an interesting young girl," said Rivett with an effort;
"but she is one of my employees, and not the sort of woman I wish my son
to marry."
"So she says," observed Jack quietly.
"_Who_ says _what_?"
"Silvette said exactly what you have just said--that she is your
employee, and her sense of honor will not permit her to listen to me."
"Oh! ... She said that, did she? ... Oh! ... Did she tell you to tell me
her answer?"
"No; she told me that if I uttered one word on the subject to you, she
would leave your service in twenty-four hours."
His father's eyes fairly bored into him like augers.
"And yet you've done it?"
"I've taken the chance--yes."
"Why?"
"Because I love her."
"You'll have that kind of pip several times before you pick the right
one, Jack."
"No; I'm like you."
"What's that?"
"I say that I am like you, dad.... I don't believe there was ever
anybody but mother. Was there?"
"How about that little Beaumont girl you met at Hot Springs?" asked his
father.
"I taught her to shoot a pistol. I liked her, but that was all.
Silvette is different."
Somehow, the memory of a girl he had once taught came into Mr. Rivett's
mind--Betty Lawrence--who smiled as nobody else ever had smiled except
her own son--years afterwards--years and years afterwards.
He raised his sunken head and looked hard at his son.
"I don't want you to marry her, Jack," he said.
"Why?"
"I had other plans for you. There are girls in New York who----"
"There are girls everywhere, but only one Silvette Tennant; and I am
like you, father."
"You don't show it now," retorted Rivett sharply. "Do you think I'd
spoil my chances--no, my certainty in New York, as you are trying to
do?"
"You only got as far as Mills Corners, dad; and you had not even seen
New York."
"I don't want you to marry her," repeated his father doggedly.
"Why?--once more."
"Because--I don't know anything about her. She gambles, too!"
"Would you care whether the girl you meant to pick out for me plays
cards for stakes?"
"I certainly--" He stopped abruptly, then: "She smokes and drinks like
a man!"
"Get some woman to ask you to dine with her at the Convent Club some
evening," said Jack, smiling.
"Who is Silvette Tennant, anyway?" demanded his father.
"You ought to know something about the Tennants, dad. You reorganized
their firm."
"I never heard of her or her sister before I hired them," said his
father, reddening.
"Dad, be square with me. Do you like her?"
"What?"
"Do you like Silvette?"
"I like her sister."
"And Silvette?"
"Yes, damn it, I do!"
Jack laughed.
"So do I," he said; "but she has refused me."
"She knew enough to do it; she is a girl of sense. Certainly, I like
her. She knows well enough that she has no right to encourage you."
"She knows something else, too."
"What's that?"
"She knows that she doesn't care for me anyway," said the boy with a
quiet simplicity that, somehow, left a confused and restless resentment
in Mr. Rivett's breast.
"Doesn't care for you?" repeated his father slowly. "She'd care for you
fast enough if she dared."
"Dared!" Jack laughed. "If she had cared for me, she'd have told
me--and sent me about my business all the same; don't worry about that.
But she doesn't care about me.... I think, sweet and generous as she
is, she does not consider our family as particularly desirable for an
alliance."
"What! My employee!"
"Why, dad, our employing her puts us at her mercy. Didn't you realize
that?"
The elder man sat silent, glaring at his son through his great convex
spectacles.
"So _that_ is why this girl wouldn't listen to you?" he said.
"Her reason was that she, being in your employment, occupied a position
of trust, and that it would be dishonest in her to take advantage of it
by encouraging your only son."
"Did she say that?"
"Almost word for word."
"When?"
"Long ago."
"Oh! So this has been going on a long while?"
"I've bothered her a long while; I've contrived to make her miserable.
She does her best to keep away from me. I don't know what to do," said
the boy miserably.
"Well, you've done it now, anyway; you've come to me, and told me
against her orders. Now, she'll go--if I tell her."
"I shall tell her; I couldn't do this without being honest enough to
tell her that I've done it."
"But--you say she'll go away."
"She certainly will, unless you ask her to remain."
"I?"
"Yes; you, dad."
"Do you think I'm going to deliberately bite my own head off?"
Jack smiled forlornly. "If you don't ask her to stay, you'll be biting
my head off; but I won't need a head if she goes, so bite away, dad, if
you're going to."
Rivett stared at him in stony silence.
"Do you know what your sister has done?"
"Yes; Inwood is a corker. I'm terribly glad."
"Oh, _are_ you!"
"Aren't you?"
"Confound it! how do I know whether I'm glad or not to see the house
emptying itself of all your mother and I care for--" He stopped with a
dry catch in his throat, then resumed more cautiously:
"I thought Chrissy's tale of woe was sufficient for one morning, but
here you come galloping in with one that beats hers to a batter! How do
you suppose I like it? I expected to have my children with me for a
while.... Yesterday you were in the cradle.... To-day you're up and off
and out into the world with a girl I never saw before last June! Jack!
Jack! what the devil's the matter with everything!"
"Isn't everything about as it was when you were my age, father?"
"No, it isn't. If anybody had predicted these times, he'd have been
locked up for a lunatic! What with luxury, and fashions, and folderol,
and high finance, and cards, and cocktails, and cigarettes----"
"I don't mean the details, dad; but isn't it all about the same--the
birth, growth, courtship, parting? Isn't it?"
The older man was silent.
Jack rose and stood by the window watching the big clouds drifting
across the sky.
"Jack," said his father, "why did you come here to tell me this?"
"Mother said I had better."
"Your _mother_!" he exclaimed, horrified.
"Yes; I told her first, of course--even before I spoke to Silvette."
"She never said--one--word to me," murmured Rivett vacantly.
"She promised not to before I would tell her."
"Do you mean to say that your mother _approves_?"
"She said she would if you did.... And all I ask of you is to invite
Silvette to overlook what I've said and done, and request her to
remain."
"If she doesn't care for you," said Mr. Rivett, "what do you want her to
remain for?"
Jack's eye met his father's.
"So that I can have a chance to win her," he said doggedly, "with my
parents' full approval."
Rivett rose, furious.
"You stay here until I've talked to your mother!" he barked, and went
out slamming the door.
Jack sat down prepared to wait, but it was not five minutes before his
father came in.
"I've seen your mother. Clear out of here! That young lady of yours is
coming."
"Here?"
"Yes, here. If you don't go out, I'll drop you out of the window--old
as I am."
"Dad! You're a brick!"
"Well, you'll get that brick in the neck if you don't hustle!"
Jack laughed and held out his hand; his father took it, tried to
speak--only succeeded in swearing. The boy went out. When the girl
entered, Mr. Rivett was standing by the window, wiping his glasses for
the second time that morning.
He turned, nodded, placed a chair for Silvette, but remained standing.
"I don't suppose you've any notion why I've asked you to come in here.
Have you?"
"Not the slightest," she said, smiling.
"I suppose you think it's on business?"
"Naturally."
"Why naturally."
"Because," said Silvette, laughing, "our relations are on a business
basis."
"Do you consider them entirely so?"
"I--am obliged to, am I not?"
"Don't you like us?" he asked bluntly.
"What an odd question! Of course, I do. I'm in love with your wife."
"_Not_ with me?"
She laughed gayly. "You've evidently discovered that Diana and I like
you immensely."
"Do you? Really?"
"Of course; you've been very charming to us. As for Christine, we care
a great deal for her--very sincerely and deeply, Mr. Rivett."
"What about Jack?" asked Mr. Rivett casually.
A slight tinge of color rose and spread in the girl's pretty cheeks.
"Everybody likes Jack," she said briefly.
"Do _you_?"
"Certainly."
"That's what I wanted to find out. That's why I asked you to come
here."
The girl looked at him, startled, incredulous of her own hearing.
"I don't understand," she said.
"Then I'll be plainer. Jack has told me that he wishes to marry you."
The crimson stained her from throat to temple, but she rose with perfect
self-possession.
"I think," she said quietly, "that this severs our business relations."
"Not unless you wish it."
"I do wish it."
"Why?"
"Because I warned Jack that one word of this matter to you would mean my
leaving Adriutha."
"Why?"
"Because I am employed here by you, and Jack is your son," she said
coldly.
"Do you mean to leave us?"
"I must."
"You need not."
"You are very kind, but my service is of no further value."
"I ask you to remain," he said slowly. "You have already rendered me
service I could never pay for. I ask you to remain with us--as our
guest, if you must; as Jack's betrothed, if you will."
She flushed again, brightly, astonished.
"But--but I don't--I am not in love--with Jack!" she stammered. "He
knows it. I have told him so.... I like him immensely.... he is a dear
boy--generous, clever, charming, considerate.... I never liked any man
better.... But I _don't_ love him, Mr. Rivett."
"That's up to him, isn't it?" asked Rivett dryly. "I can't make you
love my boy; neither can his mother. Mothers can do most things.
Probably Jack is young enough to think she can make you love him; but I
can't help that, Miss Tennant. All I can do is to ask you to remain....
And to say--that if you ever come to care for Jack, my only boy, his
mother will welcome you as our daughter--and so will I."
Then Silvette did a curious thing. She sat down at Mr. Rivett's desk
and bent her head over the blotter, and sat so, with her small
handkerchief against her eyes.
There was not a sound from her nor from Mr. Rivett.
For a long while she sat there, finally burying her face in her
handkerchief and both hands.
Mr. Rivett bent over her presently.
"Silvette?"
She merely nodded in sign that she had heard him.