NONRESISTANCE
"Long distance calling you, Mr. Stull. One moment, please.... Here's
your party," concluded the operator.
Stull, huddled sleepily on his bed, picked up the transmitter from the
table beside him with a frightful yawn.
"Who is it?" he inquired sourly.
"It's me--Ben!"
"Say, Eddie, have a heart, will you! I need the sleep----"
Brandes' voice was almost jovial:
"Wake up, you poor tout! It's nearly noon----"
"Well, wasn't I singing hymns with Doc and Cap till breakfast time?
And believe _me_, we trimmed the Senator's bunch! They've got their
transportation back to Albany, and that's about all----"
"Careful what you say. I'm talking from the Gayfield House. The Parson
got here all right. He's just left. He'll tell you about things.
Listen, Ben, the chauffeur you sent me from Saratoga got here last
evening, too. I went out with him and he drives all right. Did you
look him up?"
"Now, how could I look him up when you gave me only a day to get him
for you?"
"Did he have references?"
"Sure, a wad of them. But I couldn't verify them."
"Who is he?"
"I forget his name. You ought to know it by now."
"How did you get him?"
"Left word at the desk. An hour later he came to my room with a couple
of bums. I told him about the job. I told him you wanted a chauffeur
willing to go abroad. He said he was all that and then some. So I sent
him on. Anything you don't fancy about him?"
"Nothing, I guess. He seems all right. Only I like to know about a
man----"
"How can I find out if you don't give me time?"
"All right, Ben. I guess he'll do. By the way, I'm starting for town
in ten minutes."
"What's the idea?"
"Ask the Parson. Have you any other news except that you killed that
Albany bunch of grafters?"
"No.... _Yes_! But it ain't good news. I was going to call you soon as
I waked up----"
"What's the trouble?"
"There ain't any trouble--_yet_. But a certain party has showed up
here--a very smooth young man whose business is hunting trouble. Get
me?"
After a silence Stull repeated:
"Get me, Eddie?"
"No."
"Listen. A certain slippery party----"
"Who, damn it? Talk out. I'm in a hurry."
"Very well, then. Maxy Venem is here!"
The name of his wife's disbarred attorney sent a chill over Brandes.
"What's he doing in Saratoga?" he demanded.
"I'm trying to find out. He was to the races yesterday. He seen Doc.
Of course Doc hadn't laid eyes on you for a year. Oh, no, indeed!
Heard you was somewhere South, down and out. I don't guess Maxy was
fooled none. What we done here in Saratoga is growing too big to hush
up----"
"What _we've_ done? Whad'ye mean, _we_? I told you to work by yourself
quietly, Ben, and keep me out of it."
"That's what I done. Didn't I circulate the news that you and me had
quit partnership? And even then you wouldn't take my advice. Oh, no.
You must show up here at the track with a young lady----"
"How long has Maxy Venem been in Saratoga?" snapped Brandes.
"He told Doc he just come, but Cap found out he'd been here a week.
All I hope is he didn't see you with the Brookhollow party----"
"Do you think he _did_?"
"Listen, Eddie. Max is a smooth guy----"
"Find out what he knows! Do you hear?"
"Who? Me? Me try to make Maxy Venem talk? That snake? If he isn't on
to you now, that would be enough to put him wise. Act like you had
sense, Eddie. Call that _other matter_ off and slide for town----"
"I can't, Ben."
"You got to!"
"I _can't_, I tell you."
"You're nutty in the head! Don't you suppose that Max is wise to what
I've been doing here? And don't you suppose he knows damn well that
you're back of whatever I do? If you ain't crazy you'll call that
party off for a while."
Brandes' even voice over the telephone sounded a trifle unnatural,
almost hoarse:
"I can't call it off. _It's done._"
"What's done?"
"What I told you I was going to do."
"_That!_"
"The Parson married us."
"Oh!"
"Wait! Parson Smawley married us, in church, assisted by the local
dominie. I didn't count on the dominie. It was her father's idea. He
butted in."
"Then is it--is it----?"
"That's what I'm not sure about. You see, the Parson did it, but the
dominie stuck around. Whether he got a half nelson on me I don't know
till I ask. Anyway, I expected to clinch things--later--so it doesn't
really matter, unless Max Venem means bad. Does he, do you think?"
"He _always_ does, Eddie."
"Yes, I know. Well, then, I'll wait for a cable from you. And if I've
got to take three months off in Paris, why I've got to--that's all."
"Good God! What about Stein? What about the theaytre?"
"_You'll_ handle it for the first three months.... Say, I've got to
go, now. I think she's waiting----"
"Who?"
"My--wife."
"Oh!"
"Yes. The chauffeur took her back to the house in the car to put
something in her suitcase that she forgot. I'm waiting for her here at
the Gayfield House. We're on our way to town. Going to motor in. Our
trunks have gone by rail."
After a silence, Stull's voice sounded again, tense, constrained:
"You better go aboard tonight."
"That's right, too."
"What's your ship?"
"_Lusitania._"
"What'll I tell Stein?"
"Tell him I'll be back in a month. You look out for my end. I'll be
back in time."
"Will you cable me?"
"Sure. And if you get any later information about Max today, call me
at the Knickerbocker. We'll dine there and then go aboard."
"I get you.... Say, Eddie, I'm that worried! If this break of yours
don't kill our luck----"
"Don't you believe it! I'm going to fight for what I got till someone
hands me the count. She's the first thing I ever wanted. I've got her
and I guess I can keep her.... And listen: there's nothing like her in
all God's world!"
"When did you do--it?" demanded Stull, coldly.
"This morning at eleven. I just stepped over here to the garage. I'm
talking to you from the bar. She's back by this time and waiting, I
guess. So take care of yourself till I see you."
"Same to you, Eddie. And be leery of Max. He's _bad_. When they disbar
a man like that he's twice as dangerous as he was. His ex-partner, Abe
Grittlefeld, is a certain party's attorney of record. Ask yourself
what you'd be up against if that pair of wolves get started after you!
You know what Max would do to you if he could. And Minna, too!"
"Don't worry."
"I _am_ worrying! And you ought to. You know what you done to Max.
Don't think he ever forgets. He'll do you if he can, same as Minna
will."
Brandes' stolid face lost a little of its sanguine colour, where he
stood in the telephone box behind the bar of the Gayfield House.
Yes, he knew well enough what he had once done to the disbarred lawyer
out in Athabasca when he was handling the Unknown and Venem, the
disbarred, was busy looking out for the Athabasca Blacksmith,
furnishing the corrupt brains for the firm of Venem and Grittlefeld,
and paying steady court to the prettiest girl in Athabasca, Ilse
Dumont.
And Brandes' Unknown had almost killed Max Venem's blacksmith; Brandes
had taken all Venem's money, and then his girl; more than that, he had
"made" this girl, in the theatrical sense of the word; and he had
gambled on her beauty and her voice and had won out with both.
Then, while still banking her salary to reimburse himself for his
trouble with her, he had tired of her sufficiently to prove unfaithful
to his marriage vows at every opportunity. And opportunities were
many. Venem had never forgiven him; Ilse Dumont could not understand
treachery; and Venem's detectives furnished her with food for thought
that presently infuriated her.
And now she was employing Max Venem, once senior partner in the firm
of Venem and Grittlefeld, to guide her with his legal advice. She
wanted Brandes' ruin, if that could be accomplished; she wanted her
freedom anyway.
Until he had met Rue Carew he had taken measures to fight the
statutory charges, hoping to involve Venem and escape alimony. Then he
met Ruhannah, and became willing to pay for his freedom. And he was
still swamped in the vile bog of charges and countercharges, not yet
free from it, not yet on solid ground, when the eternal gambler in him
suggested to him that he take the chance of marrying this young girl
before he was legally free to do so.
Why on earth did he want to take such a chance? He had only a few
months to wait. He had never before really cared for any woman. He
loved her--as he understood love--as much as he was capable of loving.
If in all the world there was anything sacred to him, it was his
sentiment regarding Rue Carew. Yet, he was tempted to take the chance.
Even she could not escape his ruling passion; at the last analysis,
even she represented to him a gambler's chance. But in Brandes there
was another streak. He wanted to take the chance that he could marry
her before he had a right to, and get away with it. But his nerve
failed. And, at the last moment, he had hedged, engaging Parson
Smawley to play the lead instead of an ordained clergyman.
All these things he now thought of as he stood undecided, worried, in
the telephone booth behind the bar at the Gayfield House. Twice Stull
had spoken, and had been bidden to wait and to hold the wire.
Finally, shaking off the premonition of coming trouble, Brandes called
again:
"Ben?"
"Yes, I'm listening."
"I'll stay in Paris if there's trouble."
"And throw Stein down?"
"What else is there to do?"
"Well, you can wait, can't you? You don't seem to be able to do that
any more, but you better learn."
"All right. What next?"
"Make a quick getaway. _Now!_"
"Yes, I'm going at once. Keep me posted, Ben. Be good!"
He hung up and went out to the wide, tree-shaded street where Ruhannah
sat in the runabout awaiting him, and the new chauffeur stood by the
car.
He took off his straw hat, pulled a cap and goggles from his pocket.
His man placed the straw hat in the boot.
"Get what you wanted, Rue?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Been waiting long?"
"I--don't think so."
"All right," he said cheerily, climbing in beside her. "I'm sorry I
kept you waiting. Had a business matter to settle. Hungry?"
Rue, very still and colourless, said no, with a mechanical smile. The
chauffeur climbed to the rumble.
"I'll jam her through," nodded Brandes as the car moved swiftly
westward. "We'll lunch in Albany on time."
Half a mile, and they passed Neeland's Mills, where old Dick Neeland
stood in his boat out on the pond and cast a glittering lure for
pickerel.
She caught a glimpse of him--his sturdy frame, white hair, and ruddy
visage--and a swift, almost wistful memory of young Jim Neeland passed
through her mind.
But it was a very confused mind--only the bewildered mind of a very
young girl--and the memory of the boy flashed into its confusion and
out again as rapidly as the landscape sped away behind the flying
car.
Dully she was aware that she was leaving familiar and beloved things,
but could not seem to realise it--childhood, girlhood, father and
mother, Brookhollow, the mill, Gayfield, her friends, all were
vanishing in the flying dust behind her, dwindling, dissolving into an
infinitely growing distance.
They took the gradual slope of a mile-long hill as swallows take the
air; houses, barns, woods, orchards, grain fields, flew by on either
side; other cars approaching passed them like cannon balls; the
sunlit, undulating world flowed glittering away behind; only the
stainless blue ahead confronted them immovably--a vast, magnificent
goal, vague with the mystery of promise.
"On this trip," said Brandes, "we may only have time to see the Loove
and the palaces and all like that. Next year we'll fix it so we can
stay in Paris and you can study art."
Ruhannah's lips formed the words, "Thank you."
"Can't you learn to call me Eddie?" he urged.
The girl was silent.
"You're everything in the world to me, Rue."
The same little mechanical smile fixed itself on her lips, and she
looked straight ahead of her.
"Haven't you begun to love me just a little bit, Rue?"
"I like you. You are very kind to us."
"Don't your affection seem to grow a little stronger now?" he urged.
"You are so kind to us," she repeated gratefully; "I like you for
it."
The utterly unawakened youth of her had always alternately fascinated
and troubled him. Gambler that he was, he had once understood that
patience is a gambler's only stock in trade. But now for the first
time in his career he found himself without it.
"You said," he insisted, "that you'd love me when we were married."
She turned her child's eyes on him in faint surprise:
"A wife loves her husband always, doesn't she?"
"Do _you_?"
"I suppose I shall.... I haven't been married very long--long enough
to feel as though I am really married. When I begin to realise it I
shall understand, of course, that I love you."
It was the calm and immature reply of a little girl playing house. He
knew it. He looked at her pure, perplexed profile of a child and knew
that what he had said was futile--understood that it was meaningless
to her, that it was only confusing a mind already dazed--a mind of
which too much had been expected, too much demanded.
He leaned over and kissed the cold, almost colourless cheek; her
little mechanical smile came back. Then they remembered the chauffeur
behind them and Brandes reddened. He was unaccustomed to a man on the
rumble.
"Could I talk to mother on the telephone when we get to New York?" she
asked presently, still painfully flushed.
"Yes, darling, of course."
"I just want to hear her voice," murmured Rue.
"Certainly. We can send her a wireless, too, when we're at sea."
That interested her. She enquired curiously in regard to wireless
telegraphy and other matters concerning ocean steamers.
* * * * *
In Albany her first wave of loneliness came over her in the stuffy
dining-room of the big, pretentious hotel, when she found herself
seated at a small table alone with this man whom she seemed, somehow
or other, to have married.
As she did not appear inclined to eat, Brandes began to search the
card for something to tempt her. And, glancing up presently, saw tears
glimmering in her eyes.
For a moment he remained dumb as though stunned by some sudden and
terrible accusation--for a moment only. Then, in an unsteady voice:
"Rue, darling. You must not feel lonely and frightened. I'll do
anything in the world for you. Don't you know it?"
She nodded.
"I tell you," he said in that even, concentrated voice of his which
scarcely moved his narrow lips, "I'm just crazy about you. You're my
own little wife. You're all I care about. If I can't make you happy
somebody ought to shoot me."
She tried to smile; her full lips trembled; a single tear, brimming,
fell on the cloth.
"I--don't mean to be silly.... But--Brookhollow seems--ended--forever...."
"It's only forty miles," he said with heavy joviality. "Shall we turn
around and go back?"
She glanced up at him with an odd expression, as though she hoped he
meant it; then her little mechanical smile returned, and she dried her
eyes naïvely.
"I don't know why I cannot seem to get used to being married," she
said. "I never thought that getting married would make me
so--so--lonely."
"Let's talk about art," he suggested. "You're crazy about art and
you're going to Paris. Isn't that fine."
"Oh, yes----"
"Sure, it's fine. That's where art grows. Artville is Paris' other
name. It's all there, Rue--the Loove, the palaces, the Latin Quarter,
the statues, the churches, and all like that."
"What is the Louvre like?" she asked, tremulously, determined to be
brave.
As he had seen the Louvre only from the outside, his imaginary
description was cautious, general, and brief.
After a silence, Rue asked whether he thought that their suitcases
were quite safe.
"Certainly," he smiled. "I checked them."
"And you're sure they are safe?"
"Of course, darling. What worries you?"
And, as she hesitated, he remembered that she had forgotten to put
something into her suitcase and that the chauffeur had driven her back
to the house to get it while he himself went into the Gayfield House
to telephone Stull.
"What was it you went back for, Rue?" he asked.
"One thing I went back for was my money."
"Money? What money?"
"Money my grandmother left me. I was to have it when I married--six
thousand dollars."
"You mean you have it in your suitcase?" he asked, astonished.
"Yes, half of it."
"A cheque?"
"No, in hundreds."
"Bills?"
"Yes. I gave father three thousand. I kept three thousand."
"In bills," he repeated, laughing. "Is your suitcase locked?"
"Yes. I insisted on having my money in cash. So Mr. Wexall, of the
Mohawk Bank, sent a messenger with it last evening."
"But," he asked, still immensely amused, "why do you want to travel
about with three thousand dollars in bills in your suitcase?"
She flushed a little, tried to smile:
"I don't know why. I never before had any money. It is--pleasant to
know I have it."
"But I'll give you all you want, Rue."
"Thank you.... I have my own, you see."
"Of course. Put it away in some bank. When you want pin money, ask
me."
She shook her head with a troubled smile.
"I couldn't ask anybody for money," she explained.
"Then you don't have to. We'll fix your allowance."
"Thank you, but I have my money, and I don't need it."
This seemed to amuse him tremendously; and even Rue laughed a little.
"You are going to take your money to Paris?" he asked.
"Yes."
"To buy things?"
"Oh, no. Just to have it with me."
His rather agreeable laughter sounded again.
"So _that_ was what you forgot to put in your suitcase," he said. "No
wonder you went back for it."
"There was something else very important, too."
"What, darling?"
"My drawings," she explained innocently.
"Your drawings! Do you mean you've got them, too?"
"Yes. I want to take them to Paris and compare them with the pictures
I shall see there. It ought to teach me a great deal. Don't you think
so?"
"Are you crazy to study?" he asked, touched to the quick by her utter
ignorance.
"It's all I dream about. If I could work that way and support myself
and my father and mother----"
"But, Rue! Wake up! We're married, little girl. You don't have to work
to support anybody!"
"I--forgot," said the girl vaguely, her confused grey eyes resting on
his laughing, greenish ones.
Still laughing, he summoned the waiter, paid the reckoning; Ruhannah
rose as he did; they went slowly out together.
On the sidewalk beside their car stood the new chauffeur, smoking a
cigarette which he threw away without haste when he caught sight of
them. However, he touched the peak of his cap civilly, with his
forefinger.
Brandes, lighting a cigar, let his slow eyes rest on the new man for a
moment. Then he helped Rue into the tonneau, got in after her, and
thoughtfully took the wheel, conscious that there was something or
other about his new chauffeur that he did not find entirely to his
liking.