IVAN RECEIVES A CHECK IN HIS CAREER.
Full many a thankless son has been,
But never one like mine.
His meat was served on plates of gold,
His drink was rosy wine.
THOMAS HOOD.
When Kathleen and her uncle had left the house on Commonwealth Avenue,
Mrs. Carew turned to Ivan with angry eyes.
"Is it true? Have you got that girl's diamonds?" she inquired.
"Of course he has. You can read it in his guilty face!" chimed in
Alpine, contemptuously.
Ivan glared back at them with defiant eyes.
"What are you going to do about it?" he asked, insolently.
"You must return them. There will be a terrible scandal if you do not,"
replied his mother.
"I have sold them and spent the money," he returned with inimitable
coolness.
"Good heavens! what will you do?" she cried; and to her indignation he
laughed out aloud as he said:
"You and Alpine will have to make up the four thousand between you, and
pay Kathleen!"
"I will not!" came in a burst of rage from Alpine's lips, and her
mother echoed it.
"I will not!"
The son leaned back indolently in his chair, not a whit moved by their
anger. They always _had_ come round to his demands. They would have to
do it now.
"Would you bring disgrace on yourselves by having me sent to prison to
save a paltry four thousand dollars?" he demanded, with the air of one
who is master of the situation.
They glared at him aghast. The two women loved money passionately. It
made them almost frantic the way that Ivan squandered it.
"You two are rolling in wealth," he continued, "and yet you begrudge
a poor devil of a son and brother a few thousand to get him out of a
penitentiary scrape."
The listeners shuddered. Next to money, they loved good repute, and
it was the dread of their lives that the dissolute Ivan would bring
disgrace upon them. And here it was staring them in the face. The
penitentiary, ugh!
"We have spent at least fifteen thousand dollars on you since we came
into this fortune!" groaned Alpine.
"And what you ever did with so much money, in so short a time, I can
not imagine," added Mrs. Carew.
"Fast living and cards," laconically replied the villain.
They looked at each other, the two badgered women, and one thought was
in the mind of each. Ivan was shameless, defiant. He would never alter
his evil courses and if he went on like this, and they had to supply
him with money, he would bankrupt them in the end. Disgrace would come
to them sooner or later through this black sheep.
Alpine turned to him and asked curiously:
"How did you find out that Kathleen had left her diamonds at the
jewelers?"
He started and whitened at the suddenness of the question, but
answered, doggedly:
"That is my own secret, and I do not choose to disclose it."
"Neither do I choose to help you out of the scrape you have brought
on yourself. Not a dollar will I give you!" retorted Alpine, stung to
defiance and rebellion by his matchless assurance.
He did not believe her, and smiled as he answered:
"Oh, yes, you will, for your own sake, my dear sister. Perhaps you
think I don't see through your little game; but I do. You're trying
to marry Ralph Chainey, the great actor, although he does not care
a pin for you. However, you are crafty enough to hook him, I'll be
bound--only, he certainly would not look at you again if Kathleen sent
your only brother to prison for stealing her diamonds."
Her blue eyes blazed on him with the steely glare of a bitter hate; but
she said, almost as if begging him to do better:
"But, Ivan, if we helped you out of this, you would be into some new
scrape directly."
"Very likely," he replied, taking insolent pleasure in torturing her,
not dreaming she would really turn at bay.
But Alpine was reckless, desperate--ready to give up the fierce contest
with an untoward fate. A revengeful longing to punish Ivan for his
misdeeds, even at the bitterest cost to herself, assailed her and drove
everything else out of her mind. Her eyes flashed, her face grew ashen,
and, turning to her mother, she said, in a low, tense voice:
"You see how it is, mamma. If we help him out of this, it will be
something else directly. How can we bear the strain for years? Do what
we will, he will beggar and disgrace us sooner or later. Why not let
the end come now? Let--Kathleen send him to prison for his crime, and
we--we--can live it down as best we may."
Every word fell like a drop of ice on the ingrate's heart. Did she mean
it? Would they desert him at last, these two?
He was frightened, and yet incredulous. He had heard and read and
believed that there was no limit to the love and forgiveness of a
mother's and sister's heart.
But he had gone too far in his insolent assurance, and, to his terror
and amazement, his hour of reckoning had come at last.
He did not take into account the fact that he did not have a good woman
for a mother. His excesses had turned her heart against him, and to his
horror she sided with Alpine, angrily discarding him.
"I wash my hands of you," she said, bitterly. "Kathleen may send you to
prison if she will. Alpine and I can go abroad. The affair will soon
blow over, and people will forget it by the time we come home from
Europe."
He dropped his _insouciance_, and descended to pleading, but it was of
no avail. He saw a black fate lowering over him from which there seemed
no escape.
In the darkest moment a clever idea came to him.
"If I could only escape to Europe, the whole affair would be over, for
I would never come back; but, alas! I have not the means to pay my
passage across the ocean," he said, despondently.
Mrs. Carew caught eagerly at the offered bait.
"If you _will_ go and never return, I will furnish you the means," she
said.
"I swear it," he replied, and left the house presently, the money in
his pocket, an evil, sneering smile on his thin lips.
Meanwhile, Jones had said to Miss Belmont:
"Mr. Chainey has been waiting in the drawing-room some time to see
you."
"You should have told me sooner," she exclaimed, flashing at the
prospect of seeing Ralph.
"I did not like to interrupt you, miss," he replied, respectfully, but
Alpine did not wait to hear his apology; she hurriedly sought the man
she loved.