THE STEP-MOTHER-IN-LAW
I
On this very beautiful evening, in this very beautiful scene--as
beautiful as any to be found in all that luxurious portion of a great
city representing the flower of a great country's
civilization--Graystone Hall was a double stage. At the back of the
tall mansion house countless auto-cars passed in brilliant procession,
carrying countless men and women, personal evidences of all the ease
and luxury that wealth can bring; and of these who passed, the most
part looked in with envy at the tall mansion house beyond the curving
lines of shrubbery, brilliantly illuminated now, the picture of beauty
and ease, of peace and content. More than one soft-voiced woman
murmured, "Beautiful!" as she passed. More than one man, more than one
woman, envied the owners of this palace.
"He's awfully gone on his wife, they say," commented one young matron,
much as many did. "Not that I see much in her myself--although she
seems to have a sort of way about her, after all."
"Lucky beggar!" growled her husband.
"Yes, they're both lucky."
That both Mr. and Mrs. Rawn were lucky seemed to be the consensus of
opinion of the procession of those passing at this moment along the
great driveway, and hence looking upon the rear stage of the drama then
in progress. But they saw no drama. The evening was beautiful. The
spot was one of great beauty. Apparently all was peace and content.
There was no drama visible, only a stage set for a scene of happiness.
Yet, two hundred yards from the point of this belief, on the stage of
the dimly-lighted gallery facing the lake, the comedy of life and
ambition, of success and sorrow, moved on briskly; moved, indeed, to
its appointed and inevitable end.
II
Rawn's voice, harsh, half animal in its savagery, wakened some sudden
kindred savagery in young Halsey's soul. In a flash the spark rose
between steel and flint. The accumulated resentment of many days made
tinder enough for Halsey now.
"All right, Mr. Rawn," said he, his head dropping, his chin extended.
"Go on with the killing now, if you like. I'm going to tell you right
here, that sort of talk will do you no good. If you kill me you kill
my secret. It isn't yours, and neither you nor any other man is apt to
set it going again."
"You hound, you cur!" half sobbed Rawn. His daughter stood, tense,
silent, unnoticed at his elbow.
"Thank you! Now, I'll tell you. I dismantled every motor, and I'm
never going to build them again for you. I meant every word of what I
said. Also I mean this!"
As he spoke he rose and struck Rawn full in the face with his
half-clenched hand. The sound of the blow could have been heard the
whole length of the gallery--was so heard. An instant later, half
roaring, John Rawn closed with the younger man....
The women, plucking at their arms, could do nothing to separate the
two, indeed were not noticed in the struggle. As to that, the whole
matter was over in an instant. Halsey was far the stronger of the two.
He caught the right wrist of Rawn as he smote down clumsily, caught his
other wrist in the next instant, and then slowly, by sheer strength,
forced him back and down until at last he crowded him into the chair
which Grace a moment earlier had vacated. The bony fingers of his hand
worked havoc on John Rawn's wrist, on his twisted arm. Halsey was not
so long from his college athletics, where he had been welcome on
several teams. He was younger than Rawn, his body was harder from hard
work and abstemiousness. He was the older man's master.
"Sit down!" he panted. "I don't think you'll do this killing very
soon!"
III
Rawn, for the first time in his life, faced a situation which he could
not dominate by arrogance and bluster. For the first time in his life
he had met another man, body to body, in actual physical encounter; and
that man was his master! All at once the consciousness of this flashed
through every fiber of him, bodily and mental. He had met a man
stronger than himself--yes, stronger both in body and in mind. The
consciousness of that latter truth also sank deep into his heart. It
was a moment of horror for him. He, John Rawn, master of this place,
rich, happy, prosperous--he, John Rawn, beaten--subdued--it could not
be! Heaven never would permit that!
They all remained tense, silent, motionless, for just half an instant;
it seemed to them a long time. Halsey at length straightened and
turned toward the door.
"I'm going," said he dully. "Good by, Grace."
Rawn turned, confused, distracted. He cared for no more of the
physical testing of this difference. But he saw Success passing in the
reviled figure of his son-in-law. "No, no!" he cried--"Jennie--he
fouled me--but don't let him go--he'll ruin us, do you hear?"
Halsey was within the tall glass doors and passing toward the front
entry. He heard the rustle of skirts back of him and felt a light hand
upon his shoulder.
"Well," he began; and turning, faced young Mrs. Rawn!
IV
"I'm sorry," he stammered, "it's disgraceful. I beg your pardon with
all my heart. But I couldn't help it. He struck me first with what he
said. He threatened me. Let me go. I'll never come back here again.
I'm sorry--on your account--"
"Charles," she said softly, "Charley, wait. Where are you going?"
"To the divorce courts, and then to hell."
"But you mustn't go away like this. I'm sorry, too. Wait!"
Suddenly moved by some swift, irresistible impulse, perhaps born of
this unregulated scene where all seemly control seemed set aside, she
put both her white bare arms about his neck and looked full into his
eyes, her own eyes bright. He caught her white wrists in his hands;
but did not put away her arms. He stood looking at her, frowning,
uncertain. His blood flamed.
"It's disgrace," he said, "I admit it. I can't square it any way in
the world. I'm sorry on your account--awfully sorry!" His blood
flamed, flamed.
"Listen!" she said, panting, eager, her voice with some strange, new,
compelling quality in it, foreign to her as to himself. "You mustn't
go. You mustn't ruin the future of us all in just a minute of temper.
Yen mustn't ruin yourself, or--_me_. Besides, there's Grace!"
"Oh, Grace!"
"But she's your wife."
"Not any longer. She's chosen for herself. She left me and would not
come back. I'm going now. I'm on my own from this time."
"Why not?" she asked coolly. "But why wreak ruin on us all? You don't
stop to think!"
"Yes, it will set him back pretty badly--" Halsey nodded toward the
bowed frame of Rawn, dimly visible, in the gallery's shade, through the
tall glass doors.
"Yes," she said slowly, "he's my husband, surely."
--"Who has given you everything."
She nodded, her arms still about his neck. "Let me think this out for
all of us, Charley. Keep matters as they are until I have time to
think--won't you do that much--just that little--for me?"
His hands were still upon her wrists as he looked down upon her from
his height, his eyes angry, his face frowning, disturbed. Worn almost
to gauntness, tall, sinewy, of a certain distinction in look, as he
stood there before her now an ignorant observer might have thought the
two lovers, he her lover, not her stepson, she at the least his younger
sister, surely not his mother by mixed marriage.
V
As they stood thus, Rawn turning, saw them through the tall glass door.
His face grew eager. "He's _not_ gone," he whispered hoarsely to his
daughter, who stood rigid, close at his arm. "She's got him! By Jove!
She's a wonder--my wife, my wife--she'll land him yet--she will!"
"Do you see that?" hissed Grace at last, pointing at the door.
"Do I see it--didn't you hear me? Yes, of course I see it!"
"And you'll allow _that_, between your wife and my husband?"
"Allow it--wife!--why! damn you, girl, what are you _talking_
about--wives and husbands?--what's that to do with this? There's many
a million dollars up now, I tell you, on those two standing there. You
make a move now--say a word--and I'll wring your neck, do you hear?"
He caught her by the wrist. She sank into a chair, sobbing bleakly.
A moment later the two figures beyond the door stood a trifle apart.
The arms of Virginia Rawn dropped from Halsey's neck. She laid a hand
upon his arm and, side by side, neither looking out toward the gallery,
they drew deeper into the room, behind the shelter of a heavy silken
curtain which shut off the view.
It was a beautiful night. The long ladder of the moon still lay across
the gently rippling lake, which murmured at the foot of Graystone
Hall's retaining sea-wall. The scent of flowers was about. It was a
scene of peace and beauty and content. John Rawn and his daughter
remained upon the gallery for a time.