ROBERT LANSDALE, literary starveling and doomed victim of an incurable
malady, was yet sufficiently unchastened to read Bartrow's telegram
with the nerves of reluctance sharp set. For what he persuaded himself
were good and defensible reasons, he had lived the life of an urban
hermit in Denver, arguing that a poverty-smitten crumb-gatherer with
one foot in the grave might properly refuse to be other than an
onlooker in any scene of the human comedy.
The prompting was not altogether unselfish. In common with other
craftsmen of his guild, Lansdale was blessed, or banned, with a moiety
of the seer's gift. For him, as for all who can discern the masks and
trappings and the sham stage-properties, the world-comedy had become
pitifully tragic; and he was by nature compassionate and sympathetic.
Wherefore he spared himself the personal point of view, cultivating
an aloofness which his few friends were prone to miscall cynicism and
exclusiveness.
Lansdale knew Miss Elliott by repute, and he shrewdly suspected that
she knew all Bartrow could tell her about a certain literary pretender
who had once been rude enough to send apologies to a hostess who had
not invited him. None the less Bartrow was too good a friend to be
ignored in the day of his asking; and Lansdale presented himself at
the door of the house in Colfax Avenue at an unfashionably early hour,
meaning to begin by making the tender of his services as nearly a
matter of business as might be.
It was Connie herself who met him at the door and would hear no more
than his name until he was established in her father's easy-chair
before the cheerful fire in the library. Her welcome was hospitably
cordial; and Lansdale, who had fondly imagined embarrassment to
be one of the foibles most deeply buried under the débris of the
disillusioning years, found himself struggling with an attack of
tongue-tied abashment which is like to be the penalty exacted of any
hermit who refuses to mix and mingle with his kind.
"I came to see you at the request of a friend of yours, and of
mine, Miss Elliott," he began formally, fumbling in his pocket
for the telegram. "I have a message from Mr. Richard Bartrow
which--will--explain"--
The search and the sentence raveled out together in the discovery that
the telegram which was to have been his introduction had been left on
the writing-table in his room. Connie saw consternation in his face and
made haste to help him.
"From Mr. Bartrow? We have just returned from a visit to his mine up in
Chaffee County. Did he forget something that he wanted to tell us, at
the last moment?"
"Really, I--I can't say," stammered Lansdale, to whom the loss of the
telegram was the dragging of the last anchor of equanimity. "It appears
that I was thoughtless enough to leave the telegram in my room. Will
you excuse me until I can go back and fetch it?"
"Is it necessary?" Connie queried. "Can't you tell me what he says?"
Lansdale pulled himself together and gave her the gist of Bartrow's
mandate. Miss Elliott's laugh made him forget his embarrassment.
"That is just like Dick," she said. "He offered to come down with us
last night, but I wouldn't let him. You know Mr. Bartrow quite well, do
you not?"
"Very well, indeed."
"Then you know how anxious he always is to help his friends."
"No one has better cause to know; he is one of the finest fellows in
the world," Lansdale rejoined warmly.
"Thank you, for Dick's sake," said Connie; "now we shall get on nicely.
But to go back a little: a young woman whom I have been trying to help
is in some trouble, and Dick thought he might be needed. It was out of
the goodness of his heart. I really don't need any help--at least, not
more than my father's check-book can answer for."
"Are you quite sure? You must remember that I am Richard Bartrow's
substitute, and make use of me accordingly. May I know the
circumstances?"
Constance related them, telling him Margaret Gannon's story as only
a sister of mercy could tell it; without extenuation or censure,
and also without embarrassment. Lansdale listened absorbedly, with
the literary instinct dominant. It was Margaret Gannon's story, but
Constance Elliott was the heroine; a heroine worthy the pen of a master
craftsman, he thought, while the creative part of him was busy with
the pulling and hauling and scene-shifting which the discovery of a
Heaven-born central figure sets in motion. But in the midst of it the
man got the better of the craftsman. He foresaw with sudden clarity of
insight that Miss Elliott would presently be of the inner circle of
those out of whom the most hardened votary of the pen cannot make copy;
those whose personality is sacred because it is no longer a thing apart
to be dispassionately analyzed.
When she made an end, he sat looking at her so intently and so long
that she grew nervous. The light in his eyes made her feel as if
she were focused under the object glass of a microscope. He saw the
enthusiasm die out of her face and give place to discomposure, and made
eager apologies.
"Forgive me, Miss Elliott; I didn't mean to be rude. But I have never
looked upon your like before,--a woman in whom the quality of mercy is
not strained; whose charity is compassionate enough to reach out to the
unfortunate of her own sex."
Connie was too simple-hearted to be self-conscious under commendation.
"That is because your opportunities have been unkind, I fancy. A few
years ago your criticism would have been very just; but nowadays much
of the rescue work is done by women, as it should be."
"Much of the organized work, yes. But your own story proves that it has
not become individualized."
"That may well be the fault of the advocate in Margaret's case,"
returned Connie, whose charity was not circumscribed. "If any one of
the many good women I have tried to enlist in this young woman's cause
had been the one to discover her, I should doubtless have the same
story to tell, and quite possibly with a better sequel. But now you
understand why I don't need help. Tommie--he's my newsboy henchman, you
know--has been here this morning to make his report. It seems that when
Margaret was taken sick she was in debt to this man Grim for costumes,
or railway fare, or something, and he has taken her sewing-machine to
satisfy the claim."
The hectic flush in Lansdale's thin cheek began to define itself, with
a little pulse throbbing in the centre of it.
"He is an iniquitous scoundrel, and he ought to be prosecuted," he
declared. "Don't you see?--but of course you don't; you are too
charitable to suspect his real object, which is to drive the young
woman back into the service of his master, the devil. He had no more
legal right to take her sewing-machine than he would have to attach the
tools of a mechanic. Is there any law in Colorado?"
"Plenty of it," Connie rejoined; adding, with unconscious sarcasm, "but
I think it is chiefly concerned with disputes about mining claims."
"Let us hope there is a statute or two over and above, for the
protection of ordinary mortals," said Lansdale, rising and finding his
hat. "I presume you meant to buy Margaret another sewing-machine. You
mustn't encourage buccaneering in any such way. Let me go and try my
powers of persuasion on Mr. Peter Grim."
But Connie was not unmindful of what Bartrow had told them about
Lansdale's ill health, and she promptly disapproved.
"No, indeed, you mustn't, Mr. Lansdale; you mustn't think of doing any
such thing. You don't know the man. He is a 'hold-over' desperado from
the stage-line days. Even Dick admits that he is a person to be feared
and avoided. And, besides, you're not strong, you know."
Lansdale smiled down upon her from his gaunt height, and his heart
warmed to her in a way which was not to be accounted for by the simple
rule of the humanities.
"Dick told you that, too, did he? I am sorry."
"Why?"
"Because it involves your sympathy, and sympathy is much too precious
to be wasted upon such flotsam as I. But I am quite robust enough to
see justice done in this young woman's case. You must promise me not to
move in it until you hear from me."
Connie promised and let him go. But in the stronger light of the hall
she saw how really ill he looked, and was remorsefully repentant, after
her kind.
Lansdale left the house in Colfax Avenue with an unanalyzed sense of
levitation, which made him feel as though he were walking upon air;
but when he had accounted for the phenomenon he came to earth again
with disheartening celerity. What had a man in whose daily walk death
was a visible presence to do with the tumult of gladsome suggestion
evoked by a few words of sympathy from a compassionate young woman with
a winsome face and innocent eyes? Nothing; clearly, nothing whatever.
Lansdale set his teeth upon the word, and drove the suggestion forth
with sudden bitterness. His part in the little drama growing out of
Miss Elliott's deed of mercy was at best but that of a supernumerary.
When he should have made his entrance and exit, he must go the way of
other supernumeraries, and be presently forgotten of the real actors.
So ran the wise conclusion; but the event leagued itself with
unwisdom, and the prudent forecasting gave place to the apparent
necessities. The preliminary interview with Grim was wholly abortive.
The man of vice not only refused point blank to make restitution,
but evinced a readiness to take the matter into the courts which was
most disconcerting to Margaret Gannon's moneyless advocate. Thereupon
ensued other visits to the house in Colfax Avenue, and a growing and
confidential intimacy with Constance, and the enlisting of Stephen
Elliott in the cause of justice, and many other things not prefigured
in Lansdale's itinerary.
And at the end of it all it was Stephen Elliott's check-book, and not
an appeal to the majesty of the law, which rescued Margaret Gannon's
sewing-machine; and the man of vice pocketed the amount of his
extortionate claim, and gave a receipt in full therefor, biding his
time, and bidding an obsequious Son of Ahriman--the same whom Jeffard
had smitten aforetime--keep an eye on Margaret Gannon against the day
when she should be sufficiently unbefriended to warrant a recasting of
the net.
And when these things had come to pass, Robert Lansdale was of all
men the most miserable. From much dabbling in the trickling rill of
fictional sentiment, he had come to disbelieve the existence of any
deep river of passion; but now he found himself upon the brink of
such a river and was forbidden to plunge therein. Nay, more; he must
turn away from it, parched and thirsty as any wayworn pilgrim of the
world-desert, without so much as lifting a palmful of its healing
waters to his lips.
He postponed the turning away from day to day, weakly promising himself
that each visit to the house in Colfax Avenue should be the last,
and as weakly yielding when a day or two of abstinence had enhanced
his soul-hunger until it became a restless agony, mocking his most
strenuous effort to drown it in a sea of work.
Failing himself utterly, he fell to watching Connie's face for some
token of the hopelessness of his passion, telling himself that he
should find strength to stay away when he should read his sentence
in the calm gray eyes. But Connie's eyes were as yet no more than
frankly sympathetic. And because he was far from home, and seemingly
friendless, and fighting the last grim battle with an incurable
malady, she made him welcome and yet more welcome, until finally, the
optimistic insanity of the consumptive came upon him, assuring him that
he should live and not die, and pointing him hopefully down a dim vista
of years,--a shining way wherein they two might walk hand in hand till
they should come to the gate of the House Beautiful whose chatelaine is
Fame.