_In which Queed's Shoulders can bear One Man's Roguery and
Another's Dishonor, and of what these Fardels cost him: how for the
Second Time in his Life he stays out of Bed to think._
Sharlee, sitting upstairs, took the card from the tray and, seeing the
name upon it, imperceptibly hesitated. But even while hesitating, she
rose and turned to her dressing-table mirror.
"Very well. Say that I'll be down in a minute."
She felt nervous, she did not know why; chilled at her hands and cold
within; she rubbed her cheeks vigorously with a handkerchief to restore
to them some of the color which had fled. There was a slightly pinched
look at the corners of her mouth, and she smiled at her reflection in
the glass, somewhat artificially and elaborately, until she had chased
it away. Undoubtedly she had been working too hard by day, and going too
hard by night; she must let up, stop burning the candle at both ends.
But she must see Mr. Queed, of course, to show him finally that no
explanation could explain now. It came into her mind that this was but
the third time he had ever been inside her house--the third, and it was
the last.
He had been shown into the front parlor, the stiffer and less friendly
of the two rooms, and its effect of formality matched well with the
temper of their greeting. By the obvious stratagem of coming down with
book in one hand and some pretense at fancy-work in the other, Sharlee
avoided shaking hands with him. Having served their purpose, the small
burdens were laid aside upon the table. He had been standing, awaiting
her, in the shadows near the mantel; the chair that he chanced to drop
into stood almost under one of the yellow lamps; and when she saw his
face, she hardly repressed a start. For he seemed to have aged ten
years since he last sat in her parlor, and if she had thought his face
long ago as grave as a face could be, she now perceived her mistake.
The moment they were seated he began, in his usual voice, and with
rather the air of having thought out in advance exactly what he was to
say.
"I have come again, after all, to talk only of definite things. In fact,
I have something of much importance to tell you. May I ask that you will
consider it as confidential for the present?"
At the very beginning she was disquieted by the discovery that his gaze
was steadier than her own. She was annoyingly conscious of looking away
from him, as she said:--
"I think you have no right to ask that of me."
Surface's son smiled sadly. "It is not about--anything that you could
possibly guess. I have made a discovery of--a business nature, which
concerns you vitally."
"A discovery?"
"Yes. The circumstances are such that I do not feel that anybody should
know of it just yet, but you. However--"
"I think you must leave me to decide, after hearing you--"
"I believe I will. I am not in the least afraid to do so. Miss Weyland,
Henry G. Surface is alive."
Her face showed how completely taken back she was by the introduction of
this topic, so utterly remote from the subject she had expected of him.
"Not only that," continued Queed, evenly--"he is within reach. Both
he--and some property which he has--are within reach of the courts."
"Oh! How do you know?... Where is he?"
"For the present I am not free to answer those questions."
There was a brief silence. Sharlee looked at the fire, the stirrings of
painful memories betrayed in her eyes.
"We knew, of course, that he might be still alive," she said slowly.
"I--hope he is well and happy. But--we have no interest in him now.
That is all closed and done with. As for the courts--I am sure that he
has been punished already more than enough."
"It is not a question of punishing him any more. You fail to catch my
meaning, it seems. It has come to my knowledge that he has some money, a
good deal of it--"
"But you cannot have imagined that I would want his money?"
"His money? He has none. It is all yours. That is why I am telling you
about it."
"Oh, but that can't be possible. I don't understand."
Sitting upright in his chair, as businesslike as an attorney, Queed
explained how Surface had managed to secrete part of the embezzled
trustee funds, and had been snugly living on it ever since his release
from prison.
"The exact amount is, at present, mere guesswork. But I think it will
hardly fall below fifty thousand dollars, and it may run as high as a
hundred thousand. I learn that Mr. Surface thinks, or pretends to think,
that this money belongs to him. He is, needless to say, wholly mistaken.
I have taken the liberty of consulting a lawyer about it, of course
laying it before him as a hypothetical case. I am advised that when Mr.
Surface was put through bankruptcy, he must have made a false statement
in order to withhold this money. Therefore, that settlement counts for
nothing, except to make him punishable for perjury now. The money is
yours whenever you apply for it. That--"
"Oh--but I shall not apply for it. I don't want it, you see."
"It is not a question of whether you want it or not. It is yours--in
just the way that the furniture in this room is yours. You simply have
no right to evade it."
Through all the agitation she felt in the sudden dragging out of this
long-buried subject, his air of dictatorial authority brought the blood
to her cheek.
"I have a right to evade it, in the first place, and in the second, I am
not evading it at all. He took it; I let him keep it. That is the whole
situation. I don't want it--I couldn't touch it--"
"Well, don't decide that now. There would be no harm, I suppose, in your
talking with your mother about it--even with some man in whose judgment
you have confidence. You will feel differently when you have had time to
think it over. Probably it--"
"Thinking it over will make not the slightest difference in the way I
feel--"
"Perhaps it would if you stopped thinking about it from a purely selfish
point of view. Other--"
"_What_?"
"I say," he repeated dryly, "that you should stop thinking of the matter
from a purely selfish point of view. Don't you know that that is what
you are doing? You are thinking only whether or not you, personally,
desire this money. Well, other people have an interest in the question
besides you. There is your mother, for example. Why not consider it from
her standpoint? Why not consider it from--well, from the standpoint of
Mr. Surface?"
"Of Mr. Surface?"
"Certainly. Suppose that in his old age he has become penitent, and
wants to do what he can to right the old wrong. Would you refuse him
absolution by declining to accept your own money?"
"I think it will be time enough to decide that when Mr. Surface asks me
for absolution."
"Undoubtedly. I have particularly asked, you remember, that you do not
make up your mind to anything now."
"But you," said she, looking at him steadily enough now--"I don't
understand how you happen to be here apparently both as my counselor and
Mr. Surface's agent."
"I have a right to both capacities, I assure you."
"Or--have you a habit of being--?"
She left her sentence unended, and he finished it for her in a colorless
voice.
"Of being on two sides of a fence, perhaps you were about to say?"
She made no reply.
"That is what you were going to say, isn't it?"
"Yes, I started to say that," she answered, "and then I thought better
of it."
She spoke calmly; but she was oddly disquieted by his fixed gaze, and
angry with herself for feeling it.
"I will tell you," said he, "how I happen to be acting in both
capacities."
The marks of his internal struggle broke through upon his face. For the
first time, it occurred to Sharlee, as she looked at the new markings
about his straight-cut mouth, that this old young man whom she had
commonly seen so matter-of-fact and self-contained, might be a person of
stronger emotions than her own. After all, what did she really know
about him?
As if to answer her, his controlled voice spoke.
"Mr. Surface is my father. I am his son."