CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Asshe dressed the next morning Grace hummed and whistled, happy in the consciousness that before the day ended she would see Trenton again. The romantic strain in her warmed and quickened at the thought. Even if they were to part for all time and she should go through life with his love only a memory, it would be a memory precious and ineffaceable, that would sweeten and brighten all her years.
In his workman’s garb, as she had seen him at Kemp’s, she idealized him anew. If it had been his fate to remain a laborer, his skill would have set him apart from his fellows. He could never have been other than a man of mark. It was a compensation for anything she might miss in her life to have known the love of such a man. She was impatient with herself and sought the lowest depths of self-abasement for having doubted him. She should never again question his sincerity or his wisdom, but would abide by his decision in all things.
When she reached the dining room her father was already gone, and her mother seemed troubled about him.
“He was excited and nervous when he came home last night,” said Mrs. Durland. “He hardly slept and he left an hour ago saying he’d get a cup of coffee on his way through town. I’m afraid things haven’t been going right with him. It would be a terrible blow if the motor didn’t turn out as he expected.”
“Let’s just keep hoping, mother; that’s the onlyway,” Grace replied cheerily. “They wouldn’t be wasting time on it at Kemp’s if there wasn’t something in it.”
“I guess you’re right there,” interposed Ethel. “Kemp has the reputation of being a cold-blooded proposition. And I suppose the great Trenton values his own reputation too much to recommend anything that hasn’t got money in it.”
“Poor foolish menwillpersist in going into business to make money, not for fun,” Grace replied. “I suppose Gregg and Burley don’t sell insurance just as a matter of philanthropy. Mr. Trenton would soon be out of work if he didn’t have the confidence of the people who hire him. I wouldn’t be so bitter if I were you.”
“I heard you rolling up in an automobile last night,” Ethel persisted. “You seem to be getting the benefit of somebody’s money.”
“Ethel!” cried her mother despairingly.
“Let her rave,” replied Grace calmly. “When Mr. Burley drives Ethel home from the office it’s an act of Christian kindness, but if I get a lift it’s a sin.”
“Mr. Burley,” began Ethel, breathing heavily, “Mr. Burley is the very soul of honor! He wanted to talk to me about some of the work in our Sunday school and hadn’t time to discuss it in the office.”
“Don’t think for a minute I have any objection! If he was just opening up a little flirtation it would be all right with me.”
“How dare you?” cried Ethel, beginning to cry.
“Please, Grace,” began Mrs. Durland, pausing on her way to the kitchen with the coffee pot.
“All right, mother,” said Grace. “I resent just a little bit having Ethel grab all the virtue in the family.”
“I’m not ashamed to tell who brings me home anyhow,” Ethel flung at her.
“Neither, for that matter, am I! It was Mr. Thomas Ripley Kemp who brought me home last night. He’d taken Irene and me for a drive.”
“So thatwasit! I thought I recognized the car. That Kemp! I suppose he’s getting tired of Irene and is looking for another girl!”
“Well, dearie, he hasn’t said anything about it,” Grace replied. “But you never can tell.”
“Girls! This must stop right here! We can’t have the day beginning with a wrangle. You both ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
“I’m through, mother,” said Grace. “I didn’t start the row. I’ve reached a place where Ethel doesn’t really worry me any more.”
“Well, you were always a tease and Ethel is sensitive. I do wish you’d both exercise a little restraint.”
Grace found a brief note in the society column of the morning paper recording Mrs. Trenton’s departure, and an editorial ridiculing her opinions. Elsewhere there were interviews with a dozen prominent men and women on Mrs. Trenton’s lecture, all expressing disapproval of her ideas. A leading Socialist disavowed any sympathy with Mrs. Trenton’s programme and denounced her “Clues to a New Social Order” as a mere rehash of other books. He characterized her as a woman of wealth who was merely seeking notoriety by parading herself as a revolutionist and who would be sure to resist, with the innate selfishness and greed of her class, any interference with her personal comfort and ease.
Grace carried the newspaper with her to the trolley and on the way down town reread these criticisms ofMrs. Trenton with keenest satisfaction. Mrs. Trenton was not a great woman animated by a passion of humanity but narrow, selfish and cruel. She thought again of the encounter at Miss Reynolds’s with renewed sympathy for Trenton. After all he had met the difficult situation in the only way possible. He had said once that he didn’t understand his wife and Grace consoled herself with the reflection that probably no one could understand her, least of all, her husband.
In the course of the day Grace learned from Irene that Kemp, who was on the entertainment committee for a large national convention, had decided to ask several friends among the delegates to The Shack.
“It won’t be a shocker, like some of Tommy’s parties, only a little personal attention for a few of the old comrades,” said Irene. “You and Ward can see as little of the rest of the bunch as you please. Tommy has promised me solemnly to let booze alone. I suppose his wife will never know how hard I’ve worked to keep him straight! Ridiculous, isn’t it? Before that woman came back from California Tommy hadn’t touched a drop for a month, and he’s been doing wonderfully ever since. The good lady was so pleased with his appearance and conduct that she beat it for New York last night to buy clothes and by the time she gets back I’ll be ready to release my mortgage on Tommy for good and all. I’ve broken the news to him gently and he’s been awfully nice about it. This is really my last appearance with Tommy—it’s understood on both sides. I wouldn’t go at all if it were not for you and Ward.”
Grace envied Irene the ease with which she met situations. Irene’s cynicism, she had decided, was only on the surface; she wished she could be sure thatshe herself possessed the sound substratum of character that Irene was revealing. Irene had sinned grievously against the laws of God and man; but after disdaining those influences that seek to safeguard society, and carrying her head high, with a certain serene impudence in her wrong-doing, she now appeared to be on good terms with her soul. It was a strange thing that this could be—one of the most curious and baffling of all Grace’s recent experiences. Face to face with the problem of her future relations with Trenton, Grace was finding in Irene something akin to a moral tonic. Irene, by a code of her own, did somehow manage to cling fast to things reckoned fine and noble. Irene, in spite of herself, had the soul of a virtuous woman.
It was to be a party of ten, Grace learned after Irene had conferred with Kemp by telephone at the lunch hour. For the edification of the three strange men Irene had provided three other girls who had, as Irene said, some class and knew how to amuse tired business men without becoming vulgar. Grace knew these young women—they were variously employed down town—but she would never have thought of asking them to “go on a party.”
“Not one of these girls makes less than two thousand a year,” Irene announced loftily. “God preserve me from cheap stuff! It makes me sick, Grace, to see these poor little fools who run around the streets, all dolled up with enough paint on their faces to cover the state house and not enough brains in their heads to make a croquette for a sick mosquito. If it hadn’t been for all this silly rot about emancipating women they’d be at home cooking and helping mamma with the wash. As it is they draw twelve a week and spend it all on clothes to advertise their sex. Do you know,Grace, I sometimes shudder for the future of the human race!”
Jerry had been reinforced by a colored cateress and the country supper produced at The Shack proved to be a sumptuous dinner. Kemp had brought from his well-stocked cave on the farm the ingredients for a certain cocktail, known by his name throughout the corn-belt. The “Tommy Kemp” was immediately pronounced to be the last word in cocktails,—a concoction which, one of the visitors declared, completely annulled and set aside the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as an insolent assault upon the personal liberty and the palate of man. Kemp was in the gayest spirits; the party was wholly to his taste. The men he entertained were conspicuously successful, and leaders in the business and social life of their several cities. Irene had confided to Grace that there were at least ten millions of good money represented in the party.
The cocktails were served in the living room to the accompaniment of much lively chatter. Grace found herself observing with interest the readiness with which the young women who were strangers to The Shack’s hospitality entered into the spirit of the occasion and met on terms of familiar good fellowship the men they hadn’t seen before. It helped her to forget her disappointment at the size of the party to speculate about the men and the curious phase of human nature that made it possible for gentlemen whose names were well known throughout America, who looked as though they might pass the plate in churchevery Sunday, to enter joyfully into the pleasures of such a function. Irene had made no mistake in her choice of girls; they were handsome; they looked well in their summer frocks; they were lively and responsive; they were pastmistresses of the gentle art of kidding. There was no question but that the visiting gentlemen of wealth and social position enjoyed being kidded, and the fact that some of them had daughters at home much older than the girls who did the kidding in no wise mitigated their joy.
One of the gentlemen evidently preferred Grace to the girl who had been assigned to him. Under the inspiration of his cocktail he told Grace that he had long wished to meet her; that now they had met he was resolved that they should never part again. Grace summoned all her powers of flirtation and encouraged him, realizing that to snub him would be to prove herself a poor sport; and she had heard enough of parties from Irene to know that a girl must not when “on a party” give cause for any suspicion that she is of the melancholy tribe of kill-joys. She took a sip of the “Tommy Kemp” and handed it to the gentleman who was so beguiled by her charms, who drained the glass, murmuring ecstatically:
“To the most beautiful girl in the world!”
“Don’t let grandpa worry you,” whispered Irene. “Just tease him a little and he’ll think he’s having the time of his life. We’re not drinking—you and I. This is positively my last party! I’m going to have my hands full keeping Tommy sober.”
Trenton was talking during the cocktailing period to one of the most attractive of the girls, and when Grace glanced at him he smiled and held up his unemptied glass and put it back on the tray. He was not drinking, not even the single cocktail he usuallypermitted himself. There was serious business before them; both must keep their heads clear for it.
The dinner seemed endlessly long. Now and then Grace felt the reassuring pressure of Trenton’s hand, but the gentleman on the other side of her, under the mellowing influence of champagne piled upon the “Tommy Kemps” he had imbibed, was making violent love to her; and his elaborate tributes of adoration could not be wholly ignored. Seeing that Trenton was talking little, Kemp, still sober, thanks to Irene’s watchfulness, addressed him directly:
“I’ve got news for you, Ward. At five o’clock this afternoon I closed a deal for Cummings’s plant. Bought Isaac Cummings’s controlling interest and for better or worse the darned thing’s mine. Please, everybody, drink to good luck!”
“We don’t know what it’s all about, but we’re for you, Tommy,” cried one of the girls.
“I thought you said you’d never do it, Tommy,” said Trenton, smiling at his friend and lifting his champagne glass, reversed as it had stood on the table.
Kemp protested that this was bad luck and ordered Jerry to serve no more food until every one had drunk to the success of the merger. This brought them all to their feet with lifted glasses.
“Oh, king, live forever!” cried Irene.
“That’s something like it,” said Kemp. “I didn’t mention the matter just to advertise my business. I wanted you to know, Grace, that it gave me a special satisfaction on your account to see Cummings pass out. It was a downright low trick he played on your father. Things do sort o’ even up in this world and this struck quick and hard. When Cummings threw your father out the business was ripe for bankruptcy.Don’t let Ward scold me. He advised me against it.”
“I advised you against taking on new responsibilities,” Trenton replied. “You’ve got enough on your hands now.”
“You think I’m a sick man,” said Kemp. “But I’m going to see you all under the sod. I like this world and I’m going to live a hundred years. Jerry, fill ’em up!”
There was more food than any one needed or wanted and when Jerry began serving dessert Trenton suggested to Grace that they leave the table. Their leaving evoked loud protests. Irene was now furiously angry at Kemp, who had been unable to resist the lure of the champagne, a vintage without duplicate in all America, he declared.
The gentleman at Grace’s left, reduced to a maudlin state by his host’s generous distribution of wine, loudly importuned her not to go. Kemp announced his purpose to make a speech and was trying to get upon his feet when Irene pulled him down. One of the visitors began to sing and seized a candle from the table with which to beat time. He was bawling, “He’s a jolly good fellow,” as Grace and Trenton effected their escape.
They breathed deep of the clean country air when they reached the long veranda at the side of the house.
“Poor Tommy; I suppose there’s no way of stopping him,” remarked Trenton.
Both were aware of a new restraint the moment they were alone. The still night was sweet with spring and the earth seemed subdued by the mystery of green things growing.
Grace walked the length of the veranda, then back to the steps, Trenton beside her. He was still troubled by a sense of responsibility for Kemp. The discordantnoises from the dining room followed them and they debated whether they should try to break up the party but decided against it.
“Let’s get away from the racket,” said Trenton. “When I suggested coming out for supper it didn’t occur to me that Tommy would be pulling off a bacchanalian feast. Tommy’s incorrigible—dear old Tommy! But—we must talk. Shall we go up yonder where we can look out over the river?”
The stars and an old moon that stared blandly across the heavens made the path easily discernible. As they loitered along he spoke of Kemp’s purchase of the Cummings concern.
“I did advise Tommy against it,” he said, “because of the additional burdens he’ll have to carry. But it’s a good business stroke. He’s wiped out an old competitor and with your father’s improvements on Cummings’s motor Tommy’s going to be greatly strengthened.”
“I’ve been afraid,” said Grace, “that father’s ideas wouldn’t prove practical. He’s seemed terribly worried lately.”
“Only the usual perplexities of a genius who’s worn out from long application! He can breathe easy now. The motor’s going to be a wonder. I was with your father all day and he’s attained every excellence he claimed. You have every reason to be proud of him.”
“It’s all your kindness,” she murmured.
“Oh, not a bit of it! There’s no sentiment about mechanics. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. And your father is sound on the fundamentals where most inventors are weak.”
They sat down on a rustic bench on the bluff above the river and he threw his overcoat across her knees. Above them towered a sycamore; below they heardthe murmur and ripple of running water. He put his arm about her, drew her close and kissed her.
“I wish it were all true, as we can imagine it to be in this quiet place, that we’re absolutely alone in the world—just ourselves.”
“But it isn’t true; we’ve just run away from the world for a little while,” she said, “but I’m glad for this.”
She laid her hand on his and gently stroked it.
“I hope you understood why I didn’t go yesterday as I’d intended. I couldn’t leave without explaining. I couldn’t have you think that I took you to Miss Reynolds’s just to make you uncomfortable. It was my mistake and a stupid blunder.”
“No; the mistake was mine,” she insisted. “I realized afterwards that my first feeling was right, that it was foolish to go.”
“I was honest about it. Mrs. Trenton had led me to think that she wouldn’t resent meeting any woman who promised to give me the love and companionship it wasn’t in her power to give me. I took her at her word. You understand that, don’t you?”
“You ought to have known, Ward, and so should I, that no woman would ever have anything but hatred for another woman her husband falls in love with.”
“But what I’ve given you she never had! I want you to believe me when I say that I was really deceived by what I took to be her wholly friendly attitude.”
“It doesn’t make the least difference now, Ward. I know you wouldn’t have taken me to see her if you’d known what would happen. I’ll never have any but the kindest thoughts of you. Please believe that.”
She moved a little away from him and leaned back, her hands relaxed in her lap.
“It’s all been a mistake—everything—from the beginning,” she went on in a low voice.
“My loving you hasn’t been a mistake,” he said earnestly. “Nothing has changed that or can ever change it.”
“You merely think that. If you didn’t see me for a while you’d forget me,” she said, following unconsciously the ritual of unhappy lovers in all times.
“No,” he gently protested. “That isn’t the way of it. You don’t really think that. Please say that you don’t.”
His tone of pleading caused her to turn to him and fling her arms about his neck.
“Oh, I love you so! I love you so!” she sobbed.
His face was wet with her tears. He took her again into his arms, turning her face that he might kiss the tears away. Her whole body shook with her convulsive sobs.
“Dearest little girl! Poor, dear little child!”
In the branches above a bird fluttered and cheeped as though startled in its dreaming. She freed herself, sought her handkerchief to dry her eyes. With the impotence of man before a woman’s grief he sought to brush back a wisp of hair that had fallen across her cheek and his hand trembled. Her face seemed to hover in the star dusk; he saw the quiver of her lashes, the parted lips, felt for an instant the throbbing pulse in her throat.
“I knew the end would come,” she said, with a deep sigh, “But I didn’t know it would be like this. It’s been so dear, so wonderful! I thought it would go on forever!”
Her gaze was upon the dark uneven line of the trees across the river where they brushed the stars.
“But it isn’t the end, dear! A love like ours can’t die. It belongs to the things of all time.”
“Please, Ward,” she said impatiently, drawing her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. “Let’s not deceive ourselves any more. You know we can’t go on,” she continued, as one who has reasoned through a thing and reached an irrefutable conclusion. “It’s all been like a dream; but dreams don’t last. And this should never have begun!”
“You break my heart when you say things like that! As we’ve said so many times—it all had to be!”
“We were fools to think it could last,” she said. “But it was more my fault than yours. And you’ve been dear and kind—Oh, so beautifully kind.”
“You’ve trusted me; you’ve proved that! You’ve never doubted—you don’t doubt now that I love you!”
“Oh, it does no good to talk—let’s just be quiet—I do love you——”
“I must talk,” he replied stubbornly. “You are the dearest thing in the world to me. I couldn’t foresee what happened. It’s only right you should know what occurred after you left Miss Reynolds’s.”
“No! Please no! I have no right to know; and it can make no difference. I knew it was all over when I left the house, but I did want to see you once more——”
She was trying to be brave but the words faltered and died.
“I didn’t discuss you, try to explain you in any way. I only expressed my indignation at the wholly unnecessary manner in which Mrs. Trenton treated you, after encouraging me to believe that you would be treated with every courtesy. I suppose it was jealousy that prompted her to speak to you as she did. Miss Reynoldscame in at once. You must have met her—and I took leave after I’d tried to cover up the fact that something disagreeable had happened. That was all.”
“It was enough. There wasn’t a thing you could say. Mrs. Trenton had every right on her side. I hope you’ll go back to her and tell her that any feeling you had for me was just a mistake; make light of the whole thing. Of course she loves you. If she didn’t she wouldn’t be jealous. There’s nothing for you to do now but to make your peace with her. Don’t trouble about me. I don’t want to stand in the way of your happiness.”
“Grace,” he said, patient in spite of her strained petulant tone, “there’s no question of love about it. We know we love each other; but we’ve got to be sane about this.”
“Let’s not talk about it, Ward! You know as well as I do that we’ve reached the end. And please, dear, don’t make it harder for me by pretending it isn’t. I’m not a child, you know.”
“We’re not going to pretend anything, Grace, least of all we’re not going to pretend that everything’s over when we know we couldn’t forget if we wanted to. But we’ve got to have a care for a little while at least, now that Mrs. Trenton knows just enough to arouse her suspicions. I feel my responsibility about you very seriously. Please—won’t you believe me when I say that it’s of you I’m thinking first? We might go on seeing each other as we have been, or I might take you away with me—I’ve thought of that; but I’ve thought too of the danger. I can’t promise you that Mrs. Trenton wouldn’t spy upon us,—do something that would drag you into the newspapers, make an ugly mess. Her prominence would make attractivenewspaper material of you and me, too. I love you too dearly to take any chances. Don’t you understand? Isn’t it better——”
“Oh, please stop, Ward! Don’t talk to me as though I were a child! It all comes to the same thing, that we mustn’t see each other any more. I knew it when I left Miss Reynolds’s yesterday. It would have been better if we hadn’t come out here.”
“It won’t be forever,” he doggedly persisted. “In the end I’m going to have you. I want you to remember that.”
“Ward, how perfectly foolish of you to talk that way! If we were to go on as we have been we wouldn’t be happy. Let’s just acknowledge that this is the last time.”
“No,” he protested. “It’s not going to be that way! You’ve lost your courage and I can’t blame you for seeing things black. If I had only myself to consider I’d run away with you tonight; but that would be a despicable thing for me to do. I love you too much for that!”
The protestation of his love brought her no ease. She was half angered by his stubborn refusal to face the truth, and his professed belief that sometime in some way they were to be reunited. He was trying to see the light of hope ahead where all was dark to her.
It was strange to be sitting there beside him, thinking already of their love with all its intimacies, that had seemed to bind them together forever, as something that had been swept into a past from which, in a little while, memory would cease to recall it. This was love! This was the thing that had been written of and sung of in all the ages; and it was a lure contrived only to bruise and break and destroy.
She touched the lowest depths of despair, snatched away her hand when he tried to possess it; thought of him for an instant with repulsion. The wistful tenderness of the night, the monotonous ripple of water beneath, the very tranquillity of the stars seemed to mock and taunt her.
He waited patiently, silent, impassive, as though he knew what she was thinking and knew, too, that such thoughts were inevitable and must run their course.
The silence fell upon her like a soothing hand. The tumultuous rush of her thoughts ceased; she was amazed at the serenity with which suddenly she viewed the situation.
He was finer than she, wiser, more far seeing. Something in his figure, in his dimly etched profile in the faint starlight touched her profoundly. It was selfish of her to forget that he too suffered. He was a man she had given herself to without reservation, and with all the honesty and fervor of her young heart, and to think harshly of him was to acknowledge herself a shameless wanton, no better than a girl on the street. She could not think ill of him without debasing herself. And she did love him; she had loved him from the first, and it was not the way of love to wound.
Perhaps he had been sincere in saying that he wished to protect her—this was like him, and it was cruel of her to question his love, to fail to help him when he sought with all kindness and consideration to find some hope in the future. They must part and it might be for the last time, but she would not send him away feeling that she had not appreciated all that his love had been and would continue to be to her. Without him, without some knowledge of his whereabouts and activities and the assurance of his well-being, life would be unbearable. She was all tenderness,all solicitude, wholly self-forgetful, as she softly uttered his name.
“Ward!” her arms found their way round his shoulders. “I’m selfish,—I was thinking that you taught me to love you only to thrust me away. But I know better, dear. You are dearer to me than anything in all the world—dearer than my life even and I know you mean to be kind. I know you want to do the right thing for both of us.”
“Yes; yes!” he whispered eagerly and kissed her gently on lips and eyes. “If we truly love each other there will be some way. It was not of our ordering—any of this.”
“Yes, we must believe that, dear! There can never be any man for me but you!”
“And no woman for me but you!”
They clung to each other, silent, fearing to utter even the reassuring and consoling words that formed on their lips. Beyond the river a train passed swiftly with a long blast of the locomotive.
They drew apart, listening till the whistle’s last echo and the rumble of cars died away. Trenton sighed deeply. The disturbance had been an unwelcome reminder of the energies of the world of men hidden by the night. Grace was the first to speak.
“It’s been so dear to have this hour! But, we mustn’t meet again. Please don’t ask me to see you—ever—not in any way. We’ll both be happier if what we say tonight is final. We can’t just begin over again and be friends. That would mean forgetfulness—and we can’t forget. Please don’t write me. I’m going to be all right. I’ll be happy just thinking of you. We’re both brave and strong and knowing that will help—won’t it, dear?”
He knew that at the moment at least she was thebraver and stronger. He had nothing to add to what she had said. She rose and took his face in her hands and kissed him gently, passionlessly; passed her hands across his eyes, spoke his name softly. He neither spoke nor responded to her caresses.
“Come, dear!”
She touched his arm lightly and started down the path. He waited a moment before following.
She talked in a cheery tone of irrelevant things, laughed merrily when she lost the path; and so they came back to the garden where the lights of the house confronted them. At the veranda steps he caught her suddenly in his arms.
“It can’t be like this! I’m not going to give you up! Tell me you understand that it’s only for a little while——”
“We’re not going to talk about it any more—” she said without a quaver—with even a little ring of confidence in her voice. But she suffered his kiss, yielded for a moment to his embrace.
“I’ll love you always, always, always!” she said slowly.
“I’ll love you till I die!” he replied. They stood with hands clasped for an instant, then she turned and ran into the house.
They had been gone more than an hour and the other members of the party stared at them as though they were intruders. Two of the men, not too befuddled by their potations to remember that they were leaving town by a midnight train, were trying to convince Kemp that it was time to go. Tommy was explainingelaborately that there were plenty of trains; that if there was anything the city was proud of it was the frequency with which trains departed for all points of the compass.
Irene in her disgust with Kemp for exceeding the limits she had fixed for his indulgence in the prized champagne had retired to the kitchen to talk to Jerry. Hearing Trenton’s voice expostulating with Tommy she appeared, and announced that she was going home. One of the girls, overcome by champagne had retired and Irene went upstairs to see what could be done to restore her.
“Ask Jerry for some black coffee, Grace, that will fix her,” said Irene.
She confided to Grace her indignation at the young woman for not behaving herself; she was disappointed in her. A girl, she declared, shouldn’t go on a party if she hadn’t any more sense than to get drunk. However, she ministered to the young woman effectively and kindly.
Trenton got the three visiting gentlemen and the young women who had accompanied them into a machine and dispatched them to town and resumed his efforts to persuade Kemp to go home. Kemp wished to discuss with Trenton his business plans for the future. He wanted Trenton to promise to move to Indianapolis immediately to assist him in the management of his plant. Finding Trenton unwilling to commit himself Kemp fixed his attention upon Irene. He became tearful as he talked of Irene. She was the most beautiful girl in the world, and she had brightened his life; he would always be grateful to her. And now that she had grown tired of what he called their little arrangement, he wanted her to be happy. He wished Trenton and Grace to bear witness that he bore no hard feeling but wished her well. If at any time Ireneneeded help of any kind it would break his heart if she didn’t appeal to him.
Finding that the others were impatient at the delay these deliverances were causing he assumed an injured air and bade them take him home. They didn’t love him; nobody loved him. When finally they got him out to the big touring car he insisted that he would do the driving and this called for a long argument before he was dissuaded. He refused to enter the car at all until the others were settled in the back seat. He guessed he knew the demands of hospitality! Craig roused his ire by attempting to help him in and he waited till the chauffeur was seated and ready to start before he would move. Then he adjusted one of the disappearing seats, got in and began an ironical lecture on the instability of friendship. Some of his remarks were amusing and they encouraged him to go on feeling that so long as they manifested interest he would not revive the question of driving to the various points he had proposed as attractive places to run for breakfast. He announced suddenly that he had always wanted to visit the Tippecanoe Battle Ground and demanded an opinion from Craig as to how long it would take to drive there. He was irritated because the chauffeur professed not to know the route; he declared that he would get even with Craig for lying to him.
He became quiet presently and Trenton tried to interest him in a description of a mechanical stoker that had lately been put on the market.
“I mus’ look into it,” said Kemp. “Awfu’ nice of you to tell me ’bout it, Ward.”
Then before they knew what he was about he clutched the back of the front seat and threw one leg over. He swayed toward the driver and to steady himself grabbed the wheel.
Craig, believing Kemp wholly interested in Trenton’s talk, was caught off guard. The car, which had been running swiftly over the smooth road, swerved sharply and plunged into the deep drainage ditch that paralleled the road. As the radiator struck the further side of the ditch Kemp was thrown forward and his head crashed against the windshield with terrific force.
The three passengers on the back seat were pitched violently to the floor. Craig had shut off the motor instantly and jumped out, and when Trenton joined him in the road he was tearing off the curtains.
“Get your flash, Craig,” Trenton said. But without waiting for the light he thrust in his arms and lifted Kemp out. Irene and Grace had crawled out and stood in the road clinging to each other and hysterically demanding to know what had happened to Tommy.
Craig jerked out the seat cushions and Trenton laid Kemp upon them. The flashlight showed Kemp’s face deathly white and smeared with blood. Trenton was on his knees, his head against the stricken man’s heart. He looked up with a startled awed look and shook his head.
“God!” he said under his breath.
“Oh, Ward! Notthat!” faltered Irene, “Not——”
“No—No! We must keep our heads! Craig! What’s the quickest way of getting help?”
“Ward—Oh, Tommy, Tommy!” cried Irene, dropping on her knees and taking Kemp’s head in her arms.
“Don’t Irene—don’t!” moaned Grace helplessly.
“There’s a house a quarter of a mile ahead where I can telephone,” Craig said. “I know the farmer; you can rely on him.”
“Just a minute,” said Trenton, looking at his watch.“There are things to consider. We’ve got to think of Tommy first of all. Craig, I can count on you——?”
“Yes, certainly, sir. I’m afraid it was my fault; I ought to have been watching. But I thought——”
“You were no more to blame than I was. We can’t discuss that now. We’ve got to take care of this in a way that will protect Tommy, and you girls mustn’t figure in it at all.”
“We understand all that; we’ll do anything you say, Ward,” sobbed Irene.
“I’m trying to think of some one we can trust to help,” said Trenton. “There will be many things to do immediately.”
“I wonder,” said Irene turning to Grace, “whether we could reach John Moore.”
“There’s no one better!” Grace eagerly assented. “We could telephone him at his boarding house.”
Trenton asked a few questions about Moore and began instructing Craig as to the persons he was to call by telephone; first a physician, who was also an intimate friend of the Kemps and two of Kemp’s neighbors, well known to Trenton.
“Kemp and I had been to The Shack for dinner—alone—Jerry and the cateress must be taken care of as to that. Tommy was driving home. Something went wrong with the car and it ran off into the ditch. How about that, Craig?”
“I wouldn’t say, Mr. Trenton, that Mr. Kemp was driving. The driver in such accidents is seldom hurt. We’d better say the car simply struck a stone and swerved.”
Craig hurriedly suggested possible explanations of a deflection that would ditch a car at this point.
“Yes; that’s better,” Trenton agreed.
“If the young ladies could go into town on an interurban car that would help,” said Craig. “It’s only a little way to a stop on the crossroad back yonder. There’ll be a car passing at half-past twelve.”
These matters hastily determined, Craig hurried away, the quick patter of his feet on the macadam suggesting the flight of a malevolent fate that had struck its blow and was flying from the scene.
Tommy Kemp was dead. There was no question but that he had died instantly, either from the violent blow on the head or from a failure of the heart due to the shock of his precipitation against the windshield.
No cars had passed since the accident, but as they were on a highway Trenton urged Irene and Grace to go at once.
“You mustn’t be seen here. It’s horrible enough without having you mixed up in it.”
Irene bent down and touched the quiet face, murmuring:
“It’s cruel to leave him like this! Poor boy! Poor dear Tommy!”
Grace and Irene had worn hats on the tragic adventure and their long dark cloaks covered their party dresses so that their entrance into the interurban car awakened little interest in the half-dozen dozing passengers. Fortunately Grace had her purse and paid the fares. The swift rush of the car exerted a quieting effect upon them. Irene had wrenched her shoulder when the machine leaped into the ditch, but Grace had escaped with only a few scratches. They conferred in low tones, still dazed by their close contact with death.
“I ought to have insisted on going home earlier. But I did the best I could. Tommy wouldn’t budge. Tell me that I did the best I could!”
“Of course you did! We should never have gone—any of us!” said Grace. “I’m as much to blame as any one. But Tommy would have gone anyhow, you know he would.”
“Ward’s wonderful,” said Irene. “I’ll never forget him as he stood there beside Tommy as we left. Those men loved each other; and Tommy wasgood, Grace. I’m glad I had it out with him—about quitting I mean. He was sober then; perfectly all right. It was just before you and Ward came back that he began drinking crazily. When I told him I thought it was all wrong and that I wanted to quit he talked to me in the finest way. He said he wouldn’t let me think I could be better than he was and he was going to live straight the rest of his life. But Tommy would never have quit. There would always have been some girl; and he just had to have his parties. I suppose there’s no use worrying about that!”
“No,” Grace consoled her, “things just have to be. You can’t change anything. Ward and I said good-bye to each other tonight. So that’s all over.”
“I’m not so sure,” Irene replied after a deliberate inspection of Grace’s face. “I wouldn’t count much on Ward giving you up. Love is a strange thing. You’ll go on loving each other and breaking your hearts about it and then some day you’ll meet and things will begin all over again. I’ve always been pretty cynical about these things, but I know love when I see it. It’s——”
“Don’t, Irene!” whispered Grace, a sob in her throat. “I can’t bear it! To think of Tommy——”
Her hand stole out and clasped Irene’s. The eventsof the night had made upon both an impression that never could be effaced. Aware of this, silence held them until the lights of the station flashed upon the windows.
Moore was on the platform, and they found a quiet corner of the waiting room where Irene told the story of the accident. John expressed no surprise, made no criticism; merely said that he was proud that they had thought of him. Trenton had suggested that they ask Moore to visit the newspaper offices and then go to Kemp’s house—Mrs. Kemp was still away—and notify the servants. John’s practical mind had considered every aspect of the matter after his brief talk with Craig over the telephone and he had already dispatched the coroner to the scene of the accident that there might be no delay or subsequent criticism.
“The sooner you both get home the better,” he said. “We’ll decide now that you were both with me all evening. I’ll account for my knowledge of the accident by explaining to the newspapers that Mr. Kemp’s chauffeur called me on the telephone after trying to get Judge Sanders, who’s Kemp’s lawyer and an old friend. It happens that the judge left for Washington tonight. I think that covers it all.”
It was not until Grace had crept into bed that she was able to think clearly. It was like a hideous dream that Kemp was dead—that she had seen him die. His death obscured the memory of her parting with Trenton, or blending with it, became a part of the dissolution of all things. Alone in the dark, remorse stole upon her like a nightmare. From the hour that she had met Kemp and Trenton a doom had followed her. In a few short months she had played havoc with her life. She groped back to her days at the University—happy days, they were; days of clean wholesome living and buoyant aspiration.And she never could be the same care-free girl again.
It was not till near dawn that she slept, to be wakened by her mother a little before the prompting of the alarm clock.
“Something awful’s happened, Grace. Thomas Kemp died last night, on the way home from his farm. There was an accident to his car but the paper says he died of heart disease. Mr. Trenton was with him. Your father’s terribly upset; he doesn’t know how it will affect his prospects. It’s a strange part of it that only yesterday Kemp closed a deal for the purchase of the Cummings Company. The paper says he’d gone out to the farm with Mr. Trenton to talk over the merger.”
It was necessary for Grace to hear Kemp’s death discussed in all its bearings at the breakfast table. The talk was chiefly between her mother and Ethel, Durland merely confirming or correcting, when appealed to, their statements as to items of the dead man’s history. They speculated fruitlessly as to the fate of Kemp’s business interests, and how much he was worth and whether he had left large sums to charity.
Grace read the account of the accident and the long biographical sketch of Kemp while this was in progress. Trenton and Moore had managed the thing well. Trenton’s statement as to the manner of his friend’s death bore every mark of veracity, and it was fortified by the coroner’s report and a statement from Kemp’s physician.
“I suppose,” remarked Ethel, “that Irene Kirby will be terribly shocked. It’s a wonder she wasn’t with him. They were always gadding about the country together. I’m relieved, Grace, that you weren’t mixed up in this mess.”
“Don’t speak so to your sister, Ethel,” admonished Mrs. Durland. “There are things about Mr. Kemp I never knew. It seems he gave large sums to some of our needy institutions and wouldn’t let it be known. And he was beautiful to all his employees. It’s not for us to say he wasn’t a good man.”
“Well,” said Irene, the day after Kemp’s funeral, “I hope Tommy knows all the fine things that have been said about him. I cried when I read about the poor people who went to his house just to look at him again—people he’d helped in their troubles for years, and you can be sure he always did it with a smile. I met Ward as I was coming down this morning. He was on his way to Judge Sanders’s office and didn’t see me till I spoke to him. You’d think he’d lost his own brother! He asked about you and said to tell you not to worry about anything. And he smiled in that wistful way he has. He said he might be kept here some time.”
“Oh, I hope not!” Grace cried, and her eyes filled with tears.
She was already trying to accustom herself to the idea that they were never to meet again and the prospect of encountering him filled her with mingled hope and dismay. A few days later when Kemp’s will was published her heart bounded as she read that the testator had appointed Trenton the managing trustee of Kemp’s industrial enterprises, and that he would in all likelihood become a resident of Indianapolis. His picture was published, with a laudatory account of his career. The purchase of theCummings concern, which was consummated on the day of Kemp’s death, greatly increased the responsibilities of the trustee, who was to serve for a period of ten years.
It was with confused sensations of happy pride and poignant heartache that Grace read all this. At home it was necessary constantly to play a part, to feign indifference as to Trenton’s suddenly attained prominence, while her mother and Ethel reviewed daily all the potentialities of the situation as it affected Stephen Durland, who stolidly refrained from expressing any opinion as to what bearing Kemp’s death might have on his personal affairs.
The complexities of her life seemed to Grace enormously multiplied. Trenton was there—in town—no doubt walking at times the streets she traversed going to and from her work, and she could not see him—must never see him again! If only the family affairs were less perplexing—Roy’s future, clouded by his marriage, dominated all the domestic councils—she could leave; go where the remembrance of him would be less an hourly torture.
In combating her longing to see him she sought comfort in the thought that his new duties would help him to forget; and she wanted him to forget. With his nature he was sure to be profoundly affected by his friend’s death and the confidence Kemp had reposed in him even from the grave. She found a certain luxury of sorrow in these thoughts; she wanted him to be happy, even if his happiness were to be won only by forgetting her.