corner and into the Lafayette Boulevard, that for miles runs along the
cliff of the Hudson.
"Yes," asked Winthrop, "WHAT will you do?"
On one side was a high steep bank, on the other many trees, and through
them below, the river. But there were no houses, and at half-past
eight in the morning those who later drive upon the boulevard were
still in bed.
"WHAT will you do?" repeated Winthrop.
Miss Forbes, apparently as much interested in Mr. Schwab's answer as
Winthrop, leaned forward. Winthrop raised his voice above the whir of
flying wheels, the rushing wind and scattering pebbles.
"I asked you into this car," he shouted, "because I meant to keep you
in it until I had you where you couldn't do any mischief. I told you
I'd give you something better than the Journal would give you, and I am
going to give you a happy day in the country. We're now on our way to
this lady's house. You are my guest, and you can play golf, and
bridge, and the piano, and eat and drink until the polls close, and
after that you can go to the devil. If you jump out at this speed, you
will break your neck. And, if I have to slow up for anything, and you
try to get away, I'll go after you--it doesn't matter where it is--and
break every bone in your body."
"Yah! you can't!" shrieked Mr. Schwab. "You can't do it!" The madness
of the flying engines had got upon his nerves. Their poison was
surging in his veins. He knew he had only to touch his elbow against
the elbow of Winthrop, and he could throw the three of them into
eternity. He was travelling on air, uplifted, defiant, carried beyond
himself.
"I can't do what?" asked Winthrop.
The words reached Schwab from an immeasurable distance, as from another
planet, a calm, humdrum planet on which events moved in commonplace,
orderly array. Without a jar, with no transition stage, instead of
hurtling through space, Mr. Schwab found himself luxuriously seated in
a cushioned chair, motionless, at the side of a steep bank. For a mile
before him stretched an empty road. And, beside him in the car, with
arms folded calmly on the wheel there glared at him a grim, alert young
man.
"I can't do what?" growled the young man.
A feeling of great loneliness fell upon "Izzy" Schwab. Where were now
those officers, who in the police courts were at his beck and call?
Where the numbered houses, the passing surface cars, the sweating
multitudes of Eighth Avenue? In all the world he was alone, alone on
an empty country road, with a grim, alert young man.
"When I asked you how you knew my name," said the young man, "I thought
you knew me as having won some races in Florida last winter. This is
the car that won. I thought maybe you might have heard of me when I
was captain of a football team at--a university. If you have any idea
that you can jump from this car and not be killed, or, that I cannot
pound you into a pulp, let me prove to you you're wrong--now. We're
quite alone. Do you wish to get down?"
"No," shrieked Schwab, "I won't!" He turned appealingly to the young
lady. "You're a witness," he cried. "If he assaults me, he's liable.
I haven't done nothing."
"We're near Yonkers," said the young man, "and if you try to take
advantage of my having to go slow through the town, you know now what
will happen to you."
Mr. Schwab having instantly planned on reaching Yonkers, to leap from
the car into the arms of the village constable, with suspicious
alacrity, assented. The young man regarded him doubtfully.
"I'm afraid I'll have to show you," said the young man. He laid two
fingers on Mr. Schwab's wrist; looking at him, as he did so, steadily
and thoughtfully, like a physician feeling a pulse. Mr. Schwab
screamed. When he had seen policemen twist steel nippers on the wrists
of prisoners, he had thought, when the prisoners shrieked and writhed,
they were acting.
He now knew they were not.
"Now, will you promise?" demanded the grim young man.
"Yes," gasped Mr. Schwab. "I'll sit still. I won't do nothing."
"Good," muttered Winthrop.
A troubled voice that carried to the heart of Schwab a promise of
protection, said: "Mr. Schwab, would you be more comfortable back here
with me?"
Mr. Schwab turned two terrified eyes in the direction of the voice. He
saw the beautiful young lady regarding him kindly, compassionately;
with just a suspicion of a smile. Mr. Schwab instantly scrambled to
safety over the front seat into the body of the car. Miss Forbes made
way for the prisoner beside her and he sank back with a nervous,
apologetic sigh. The alert young man was quick to follow the lead of
the lady.
"You'll find caps and goggles in the boot, Schwab," he said hospitably.
"You had better put them on. We are going rather fast now." He
extended a magnificent case of pigskin, that bloomed with fat black
cigars. "Try one of these," said the hospitable young man. The
emotions that swept Mr. Schwab he found difficult to pursue, but he
raised his hat to the lady. "May I, Miss?" he said.
"Certainly," said the lady.
There was a moment of delay while with fingers that slightly trembled,
Mr. Schwab selected an amazing green cap and lit his cigar; and then
the car swept forward, singing and humming happily, and scattering the
autumn leaves. The young lady leaned toward him with a book in a
leather cover. She placed her finger on a twisting red line that
trickled through a page of type.
"We're just here," said the young lady, "and we ought to reach home,
which is just about there, in an hour."
"I see," said Schwab. But all he saw was a finger in a white glove,
and long eyelashes tangled in a gray veil.
For many minutes, or for all Schwab knew, for many miles, the young
lady pointed out to him the places along the Hudson, of which he had
read in the public school history, and quaint old manor houses set in
glorious lawns; and told him who lived in them. Schwab knew the names
as belonging to down-town streets, and up-town clubs. He became
nervously humble, intensely polite, he felt he was being carried as an
honored guest into the very heart of the Four Hundred, and when the car
jogged slowly down the main street of Yonkers, although a policeman
stood idly within a yard of him, instead of shrieking to him for help,
"Izzy" Schwab looked at him scornfully across the social gulf that
separated them, with all the intolerance he believed becoming in the
upper classes.
"Those bicycle cops," he said confidentially to Miss Forbes, "are too
chesty."
The car turned in between stone pillars, and under an arch of red and
golden leaves, and swept up a long avenue to a house of innumerable
roofs. It was the grandest house Mr. Schwab had ever entered, and when
two young men in striped waistcoats and many brass buttons ran down the
stone steps and threw open the door of the car, his heart fluttered
between fear and pleasure.
Lounging before an open fire in the hall were a number of young men,
who welcomed Winthrop delightedly and, to all of whom Mr. Schwab was
formally presented. As he was introduced he held each by the hand and
elbow and said impressively, and much to the other's embarrassment,
"WHAT name, please?"
Then one of the servants conducted him to a room opening on the hall,
from whence he heard stifled exclamations and laughter, and some one
saying "Hush." But "Izzy" Schwab did not care. The slave in brass
buttons was proffering him ivory-backed hair-brushes, and obsequiously
removing the dust from his coat collar. Mr. Schwab explained to him
that he was not dressed for automobiling, as Mr. Winthrop had invited
him quite informally. The man was most charmingly sympathetic. And
when he returned to the hall every one received him with the most
genial, friendly interest. Would he play golf, or tennis, or pool, or
walk over the farm, or just look on? It seemed the wish of each to be
his escort. Never had he been so popular.
He said he would "just look on." And so, during the last and decisive
day of the "whirlwind" campaign, while in Eighth Avenue voters were
being challenged, beaten, and bribed, bonfires were burning, and
"extras" were appearing every half hour, "Izzy" Schwab, the Tammany
henchman, with a secret worth twenty thousand votes, sat a prisoner, in
a wicker chair, with a drink and a cigar, guarded by four young men in
flannels, who played tennis violently at five dollars a corner.
It was always a great day in the life of "Izzy" Schwab. After a
luncheon, which, as he later informed his friends, could not have cost
less than "two dollars a plate and drink all you like," Sam Forbes took
him on at pool. Mr. Schwab had learned the game in the cellars of
Eighth Avenue at two and a half cents a cue, and now, even in Columbus
Circle he was a star. So, before the sun had set, Mr. Forbes, who at
pool rather fancied himself, was seventy-five dollars poorer, and Mr.
Schwab just that much to the good. Then there followed a strange
ceremony called tea, or, if you preferred it, whiskey and soda; and the
tall footman bent before him with huge silver salvers laden down with
flickering silver lamps, and bubbling soda bottles, and cigars, and
cigarettes.
"You could have filled your pockets with twenty-five cent Havanas, and
nobody would have said nothing!" declared Mr. Schwab, and his friends
who never had enjoyed his chance to study at such close quarters the
truly rich, nodded enviously.
At six o'clock Mr. Schwab led Winthrop into the big library and asked
for his ticket of leave.
"They'll be counting the votes soon," he begged. "I can't do no harm
now, and I don't mean to. I didn't see nothing, and I won't say
nothing. But it's election night, and--and I just GOT to be on
Broadway."
"Right," said Winthrop, "I'll have a car take you in, and if you will
accept this small check----"
"No!" roared "Izzy" Schwab. Afterward he wondered how he came to do
it. "You've give me a good time, Mr. Winthrop. You've treated me
fine, all the gentlemen have treated me nice. I'm not a blackmailer,
Mr. Winthrop." Mr. Schwab's voice shook slightly.
"Nonsense, Schwab, you didn't let me finish," said Winthrop, "I'm
likely to need a lawyer any time; this is a retaining fee. Suppose I
exceed the speed limit--I'm liable to do that----"
"You bet you are!" exclaimed Mr. Schwab violently.
"Well, then, I'll send for YOU, and there isn't a police magistrate,
nor any of the traffic squad, you can't handle, is there?"
Mr. Schwab flushed with pleasure.
"You can count on me," he vowed, "and your friends too, and the
ladies," he added gallantly. "If ever the ladies want to get bail,
tell 'em to telephone for 'Izzy' Schwab. Of course," he said
reluctantly, "if it's a retaining fee----"
But when he read the face of the check he exclaimed in protest. "But,
Mr. Winthrop, this is more than the Journal would have give me!"
They put him in a car belonging to one of the other men, and all came
out on the steps to wave him "good-by," and he drove magnificently into
his own district, where there were over a dozen men who swore he tipped
the French chauffeur a five dollar bill "just like it was a cigarette."
All of election day since her arrival in Winthrop's car, Miss Forbes
had kept to herself. In the morning, when the other young people were
out of doors, she remained in her room, and after luncheon when they
gathered round the billiard table, she sent for her cart and drove off
alone. The others thought she was concerned over the possible result
of the election, and did not want to disturb them by her anxiety.
Winthrop, thinking the presence of Schwab embarrassed her, recalling as
it did Peabody's unfortunate conduct of the morning, blamed himself for
bringing Schwab to the house. But he need not have distressed himself.
Miss Forbes was thinking neither of Schwab nor Peabody, nor was she
worried or embarrassed. On the contrary, she was completely happy.
When that morning she had seen Peabody running up the steps of the
Elevated, all the doubts, the troubles, questions, and misgivings that
night and day for the last three months had upset her, fell from her
shoulders like the pilgrim's heavy pack. For months she had been
telling herself that the unrest she felt when with Peabody was due to
her not being able to appreciate the importance of those big affairs in
which he was so interested; in which he was so admirable a figure. She
had, as she supposed, loved him, because he was earnest, masterful,
intent of purpose. His had seemed a fine character. When she had
compared him with the amusing boys of her own age, the easy-going
joking youths to whom the betterment of New York was of no concern, she
had been proud in her choice. She was glad Peabody was ambitious. She
was ambitious for him. She was glad to have him consult her on those
questions of local government, to listen to his fierce, contemptuous
abuse of Tammany. And yet early in their engagement she had missed
something, something she had never known, but which she felt sure
should exist. Whether she had seen it in the lives of others, or read
of it in romances, or whether it was there because it was nature to
desire to be loved, she did not know. But long before Winthrop
returned from his trip round the world, in her meetings with the man
she was to marry, she had begun to find that there was something
lacking. And Winthrop had shown her that this something lacking was
the one thing needful. When Winthrop had gone abroad he was only one
of her brother's several charming friends. One of the amusing merry
youths who came and went in the house as freely as Sam himself. Now,
after two years' absence, he refused to be placed in that category.
He rebelled on the first night of his return. As she came down to the
dinner of welcome her brother was giving Winthrop, he stared at her as
though she were a ghost, and said, so solemnly that every one in the
room, even Peabody, smiled: "Now I know why I came home." That he
refused to recognize her engagement to Peabody, that on every occasion
he told her, or by some act showed her, he loved her; that he swore she
should never marry any one but himself, and that he would never marry
any one but her, did not at first, except to annoy, in any way impress
her.
But he showed her what in her intercourse with Peabody was lacking. At
first she wished Peabody could find time to be as fond of her, as
foolishly fond of her, as was Winthrop. But she realized that this was
unreasonable. Winthrop was just a hot-headed impressionable boy,
Peabody was a man doing a man's work. And then she found that week
after week she became more difficult to please. Other things in which
she wished Peabody might be more like Winthrop, obtruded themselves.
Little things which she was ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and
big things, such as consideration for others, and a sense of humor, and
not talking of himself. Since this campaign began, at times she had
felt that if Peabody said "I" once again, she must scream. She assured
herself she was as yet unworthy of him, that her intelligence was weak,
that as she grew older and so better able to understand serious
affairs, such as the importance of having an honest man at Albany as
Lieutenant-Governor, they would become more in sympathy. And now, at a
stroke, the whole fabric of self-deception fell from her. It was not
that she saw Peabody so differently, but that she saw herself and her
own heart, and where it lay. And she knew that "Billy" Winthrop,
gentle, joking, selfish only in his love for her, held it in his two
strong hands.
For the moment, when as she sat in the car deserted by Peabody this
truth flashed upon her, she forgot the man lying injured in the street,
the unscrubbed mob crowding about her. She was conscious only that a
great weight had been lifted. That her blood was flowing again,
leaping, beating, dancing through her body. It seemed as though she
could not too quickly tell Winthrop. For both of them she had lost out
of their lives many days. She had risked losing him for always. Her
only thought was to make up to him and to herself the wasted time. But
throughout the day the one-time welcome, but now intruding, friends and
the innumerable conventions of hospitality required her to smile and
show an interest, when her heart and mind were crying out the one great
fact.
It was after dinner, and the members of the house party were scattered
between the billiard-room and the piano. Sam Forbes returned from the
telephone.
"Tammany," he announced, "concedes the election of Jerome by forty
thousand votes, and that he carries his ticket with him. Ernest
Peabody is elected his Lieutenant-Governor by a thousand votes.
Ernest," he added, "seems to have had a close call." There was a
tremendous chorus of congratulations in the cause of Reform. They
drank the health of Peabody. Peabody himself, on the telephone,
informed Sam Forbes that a conference of the leaders would prevent his
being present with them that evening. The enthusiasm for Reform
perceptibly increased.
An hour later Winthrop came over to Beatrice and held out his hand.
"I'm going to slip away," he said. "Good-night."
"Going away!" exclaimed Beatrice. Her voice showed such apparently
acute concern that Winthrop wondered how the best of women could be so
deceitful, even to be polite.
"I promised some men," he stammered, "to drive them down-town to see
the crowds."
Beatrice shook her head.
"It's far too late for that," she said. "Tell me the real reason."
Winthrop turned away his eyes.
"Oh! the real reason," he said gravely, "is the same old reason, the
one I'm not allowed to talk about. It's cruelly hard when I don't see
you," he went on, slowly dragging out the words, "but it's harder when
I do; so I'm going to say 'good-night' and run into town."
He stood for a moment staring moodily at the floor, and then dropped
into a chair beside her.
"And, I believe, I've not told you," he went on, "that on Wednesday I'm
running away for good, that is, for a year or two. I've made all the
fight I can and I lose, and there is no use in my staying on here
to--well--to suffer, that is the plain English of it. So," he
continued briskly, "I won't be here for the ceremony, and this is
'good-by' as well as 'good-night.'"
"Where are you going for a year?" asked Miss Forbes.
Her voice now showed no concern. It even sounded as though she did not
take his news seriously, as though as to his movements she was
possessed of a knowledge superior to his own. He tried to speak in
matter-of-fact tones.
"To Uganda!" he said.
"To Uganda?" repeated Miss Forbes. "Where is Uganda?"
"It is in East Africa; I had bad luck there last trip, but now I know
the country better, and I ought to get some good shooting."
Miss Forbes appeared indifferently incredulous. In her eyes there was
a look of radiant happiness. It rendered them bewilderingly beautiful.
"On Wednesday," she said. "Won't you come and see us again before you
sail for Uganda?"
Winthrop hesitated.
"I'll stop in and say 'good-by' to your mother if she's in town, and to
thank her. She's been awfully good to me. But you--I really would
rather not see you again. You understand, or rather, you don't
understand, and," he added vehemently, "you never will understand." He
stood looking down at her miserably.
On the driveway outside there was a crunching on the gravel of heavy
wheels and an aurora-borealis of lights.
"There's your car," said Miss Forbes. "I'll go out and see you off."
"You're very good," muttered Winthrop. He could not understand. This
parting from her was the great moment in his life, and although she
must know that, she seemed to be making it unnecessarily hard for him.
He had told her he was going to a place very far away, to be gone a
long time, and she spoke of saying "good-by" to him as pleasantly as
though it was his intention to return from Uganda for breakfast.
Instead of walking through the hall where the others were gathered, she
led him out through one of the French windows upon the terrace, and
along it to the steps. When she saw the chauffeur standing by the car,
she stopped.
"I thought you were going alone," she said.
"I am," answered Winthrop. "It's not Fred; that's Sam's chauffeur; he
only brought the car around."
The man handed Winthrop his coat and cap, and left them, and Winthrop
seated himself at the wheel. She stood above him on the top step. In
the evening gown of lace and silver she looked a part of the moonlight
night. For each of them the moment had arrived. Like a swimmer
standing on the bank gathering courage for the plunge, Miss Forbes gave
a trembling, shivering sigh.
"You're cold," said Winthrop, gently. "You must go in. Good-by."
"It isn't that," said the girl. "Have you an extra coat?"
"It isn't cold enough for----"
"I meant for me," stammered the girl in a frightened voice. "I thought
perhaps you would take me a little way, and bring me back."
At first the young man did not answer, but sat staring in front of him,
then, he said simply:
"It's awfully good of you, Beatrice. I won't forget it."
It was a wonderful autumn night, moonlight, cold, clear and brilliant.
She stepped in beside him and wrapped herself in one of his
great-coats. They started swiftly down the avenue of trees.
"No, not fast," begged the girl, "I want to talk to you."
The car checked and rolled forward smoothly, sometimes in deep shadow,
sometimes in the soft silver glamour of the moon; beneath them the
fallen leaves crackled and rustled under the slow moving wheels. At
the highway Winthrop hesitated. It lay before them arched with great
and ancient elms; below, the Hudson glittered and rippled in the
moonlight.
"Which way do you want to go?" said Winthrop. His voice was very
grateful, very humble.
The girl did not answer.
There was a long, long pause.
Then he turned and looked at her and saw her smiling at him with that
light in her eyes that never was on land or sea.
"To Uganda," said the girl.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Scarlet Car, by Richard Harding Davis