CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIV

THE days which succeeded that night’s adventure were placid. Carmel awoke in the morning as one awakes after a singularly realistic dream. It was a dream to her, unreal, impossible. She could not imagine herself doing what she had done; in short, she knew she had never done it. That she should have let off a firearm at human beings was an act so impossible as to make it seem laughable.

She went to the office with apprehension. What would happen? How would Gibeon receive the news? Her apprehensions were needless. Gibeon received the news apathetically. In the first place, the town did not know exactly what had happened and was inclined to place little credence in rumors. Most of it strolled past the office before noon, seeking with wary eye for evidences of the war, and finding none. A scanty few passed through the door to speak with Carmel about it. Apparently Gibeon was not interested.

Somehow this hurt Carmel’s pride. Girl-like, she felt herself to be something of a heroine, and wanted folks to recognize her eminence. But even her own staff seemed not to take that view of the matter. Tubal was sullen; Simmy was silent and frightened; Evan Bartholomew Pell failed to revert to the matterat all. He had retired more deeply than ever within his shell of pedanticism, and his supercilious air was more irritating than ever before. Carmel was hurt.

She did not know how shaken Evan Pell was, nor the effect upon him of his discovery that a woman could be of such importance in his life as he found Carmel to be. With women he had no dealings and no experience. They had been negligible in his life, existing only academically, so to speak. Women and fossil specimens and remnants of ancient civilizations and flora and fauna had occupied somewhat similar positions in his experience, with women in the least interesting position. He did not know them as human beings at all. They had never troubled him in the least. Nothing had ever troubled him greatly. He had always considered them in the mass, as a genus, to be studied, perhaps, as all created things should be studied. But never until Carmel’s advent had he entertained the idea that one of them might become personally important to him. Evan would have been no more astonished to find himself involved with a diplodocus than he now was to discover his throbbing personal interest in an individual woman.

He was angry with Carmel. Somehow she had done something to him. He was affronted. He had been taken advantage of, and now he was considering what action to take. Decidedly Carmel must be put in her place, once for all, and the disagreeable situation with all its dreadful possibilities must be terminated with finality.

Evan turned in his chair and felt for his glasses, which were absent.

“Miss Lee,” he said, in his most pedagogical voice, “may I have your attention briefly?”

Carmel faced him with some trepidation.

“Last night,” he said, “moved by an excitement to which I fancied myself immune, certain words were surprised from me.”

“I don’t remember,” Carmel said, weakly.

“Pardon me,” he said, “youdoremember. Your manner toward me assures me of your complete recollection.”

“Indeed!”

“However, in order to avoid misapprehensions I shall refresh your memory. My words, and I remember them exactly, were as follows: ‘I believe I’ve fallen in love with you.’”

“Oh,that,” said Carmel, as if the matter were of no moment.

“That.... Exactly. Er—your physical peril aroused in me an excitement and apprehension most distasteful to me. I have been puzzled for some time with respect to yourself and the strange effect your presence has upon me. The matter became clear last night. I said I believed I was in love with you. That was inaccurate. IknewI was in love with you.”

“But——” Carmel began. Evan held up his hand as to an interruption in a classroom.

“If you please.... I discovered a fact, and one must deal with facts. I slept little last night for considering this one. I have reached a definite andfinal conclusion, and wish the matter to be understood between us once for all, and so disposed of.”

“Mr. Pell——” Again he imposed silence upon her.

“I am unable to perceive how this distressing condition came into being. It was wholly without intention on my part—against my every instinct. I do not wish to be in love with you.”

“Indeed!” said Carmel.

“Quite the contrary. Therefore I wish to impress upon you that nothing can come of it.”

“And do you suppose——” Once again Carmel essayed to speak; once more he interrupted.

“Be so good as to allow me to finish. Please understand my words to be final. I will not marry you. In no circumstances will I make you my wife. I do not want a wife.... It is no fault of mine that I am in love with you, and therefore I shall not permit myself to suffer for what I cannot help. I shall take measures to affect a cure, for the thing, as I see it, is a species of mental ailment.... Therefore, let me repeat, in spite of the condition in which I find myself, you need not expect me to become your husband.... The matter is closed between us.”

He turned from her abruptly and became much occupied with the papers upon his desk.

As for Carmel, she was in a state of mind. The thing manifestly was an outrage, an indignity, a humiliation, and she was angry. On the other hand, it was absurd, impossibly absurd, inhumanly absurd,and the laughter which struggled to come was only repressed by a wave of pity. The pity engulfed both anger and laughter. Poor, dryly crackling man! What must his life be without human warmth and human emotions! She was able to see the thing impersonally—the dreadful abnormality of his existence, so that when she spoke it was without rancor and gently.

“Mr. Pell,” she said, “you need have no apprehensions. I do not wish to marry you. I am very, very sorry if you have fallen in love with me.... And I cannot tell you how sorry I am for you.”

“For me?” he said, bristling.

“For you. You are the most pathetic man I have ever known.”

“Pathetic!”

She nodded. “I have no experience with life,” she said, gently, “but certain knowledge is born in most of us. We know that life—real life—consists only of suffering and happiness. All other things are only incidents. All the good in life is derived either from sorrow or joy. If you pass through life without experiencing either, you have not lived. And, Mr. Pell, the greatest source of grief and of happiness is love. I do not know how I know this, but you may take it as the truth. I have never loved, but if I felt I never should love, I think I should despair. I want to love some man, to give him my life, to make him my life. I want him to be my world.”

“It is useless to argue,” said Evan Pell.

Carmel flamed.

“Argue!” she said. “Mr. Pell, let me tell you this, and as you said to me a moment ago, it is final. If you and I were the sole survivors upon the earth, I could do nothing but pity you. I am not sure I could do that. You are abnormal, and the abnormal is repulsive.... You rather fancy yourself. You are all ego. Please try to believe that you are of no importance to anybody. You are negligible. Whether you live or die can be of no importance to any living creature.... You are accustomed to look down upon those who surround you. Don’t you see how people look down upon you? You think yourself superior. That is absurd. You are nothing but a dry running little machine, which can go out of order and be thrown upon the junk pile at any time without causing the least annoyance to anybody. Why, Mr. Pell, if you should die to-night, who would care? What difference would it make? What do you contribute to this world to make you of value to it?”

He had turned and was regarding her with grave interest. Manifestly her words did not humiliate nor anger him, but they interested him as an argument, a statement of a point of view.

“Go on, please,” he said. “Elucidate.”

“Only those who give something to the world are important to the world. What do you give? What have you ever given? You have studied. You are so crammed with dry knowledge that you crackle like parchment. What good does it do anybody?What good does it do you? Did you ever help a living creature with your knowledge? I cannot imagine it. You study for the sake of increasing your own store, not with the hope of being able to use all your knowledge to do something for the world. You are a miser. You fill your mind with all sorts of things, and keep them there. It is utterly selfish, utterly useless. Think of the great men whose work you study, the great thinkers and scientists of all ages. Why did they work? Was it to hoard knowledge or to give it to the world in order that the world might live more easily or more happily? They are important because they were useful. You—Why, Mr. Pell, you are the most conspicuously useless human being I have ever encountered.”

He regarded her a moment before speaking. “Is your thesis complete?” he asked, gravely.

“It is.”

“I shall give it my best consideration,” he said, and turned again to his work.

It was not easy for Carmel again to concentrate upon the books of theFree Press, which, with only a limited knowledge of the bewildering science of bookkeeping, she was examining. Bookkeeping is a science. It is the science of translating simple financial facts into abstruse cipher in order that nobody may understand them except an individual highly trained in cabalistics. The reason for this is clear. It is a conspiracy among bookkeepers to make bookkeepers necessary and thus to afford themselves witha means of livelihood.... Carmel was reading the cipher in order to determine if theFree Presswere in worse or better case for her ownership of it.

Love and bookkeeping are subjects which do not blend, for, as anybody knows, love is not an exact science. Also it is a characteristic that love meddles with everything and blends with nothing. It is intensely self-centered and jealous. Therefore, as may be supposed, Carmel had difficulty in arriving at conclusions.

An ordinary declaration of love must be somewhat upsetting, even to the most phlegmatic. A declaration such as Evan Pell had just uttered would have disturbed the serenity of a plaster-of-Paris Venus of Milo. Carmel wished to compare circulation figures; what she actually did was to compare Evan’s declaration with the declaration of love of which she, in common with every other girl, had visualized in her dreams. It would be idle to state that Carmel had never considered Evan as a possible husband. It is doubtful if any unmarried woman ever encounters an available man without considering him as a possible husband—or if any married woman, no matter how virtuous, ever passes an hour in the society of a gentleman without asking herself if this is the individual with whom she may have the great love affair of her life. Love, being the chief business of all women from six to sixty, this is natural and proper.

Here was a variant of the common situation. Carmel was informed she was loved, but that sheneed expect nothing to come of it. No woman could like that. It was a challenge. It was an affront. A gage of battle had been cast, and it is to be doubted if there is a woman alive who would not feel the necessity of making Evan alter his views. Carmel did not want him in the least. Quite the contrary; but, now he had spoken his mind so brusquely, she would never be able to live in ease until he came to want her very much and wore his knees threadbare begging for her. This was wholly subconscious. Carmel did not know it, but, nevertheless, she had determined to make Evan Pell pay fully in the coin of the transaction for the damage done by his ineptitude.

With part of her mind on the figures and the rest on Evan Pell, she arrived at certain information. Unquestionably theFree Presshad been gaining in circulation. That much she had accomplished. Her policy of reckless disclosure could have no other result, and therefore it must have been good journalism. As for advertising patronage—there, too, she had made progress. Her personal solicitation brought in some few new advertisers and resulted in old patrons enlarging somewhat their space. Also she had taken some business from Litchfield, the largest adjoining town, and, on a visit to the near-by city, she had induced a department store to use half a page weekly. How much of this she could hold was a problem. It became more of a problem within the hour, when no less than three of her patrons called by telephone to cancel. The Busy Big Store canceleda full page which Carmel had labored hard to get; Lancelot Bangs, photographer, and Smith Brothers’ grocery ceased to be assets—and no one of them assigned a reason. It worried her to such an extent that she dropped her work and went to see about it.

Her first call was upon the proprietor of the Busy Big Store. This gentleman was embarrassed, and consequently inclined to bluster, but Carmel, being a persistent young person, cross-examined him ruthlessly.

“I got to borrow from the bank,” he said, finally. “No merchant kin git along without accommodation. Bank says I’m wastin’ too much money advertisin’, and it can’t back me if I keep on.”

“So you take orders from the bank?” she asked, hotly, out of her inexperience.

“You kin bet your bottom dollar I do,” he said.

Carmel bit her lip. “Abner Fownes is a stockholder in the bank, isn’t he?”

“One of the biggest.”

Carmel turned away and left the store. She had run down her fact. No more was necessary. She knew why merchants were canceling their contracts with her—it was because Abner Fownes issued orders to do so. For the first time he showed his hand in overt act. The question now was: How many merchants in Gibeon could Abner Fownes control? How long could he continue to dictate to them?... What good was circulation increase if advertising patronage failed?

She returned to the office in lowest spirits and considered her case. It was not pleasant consideration.

She had arrived in town a few weeks before, a stranger, without friends. She was unacquainted with Gibeon and with its peculiarities, and at the very beginning had made an enemy of its leading citizen, a man ostensibly possessed of great power to blight her prospects. She had made no friends, had not sought to strengthen her position by alliances. Frankly, she knew almost as little about Gibeon to-day as she knew the hour of her arrival. Her acquaintance was altogether with the melodramatic side of the town’s life, with the disappearance of its sheriff; with illicit dealings in liquor; with its political trickery. She did not know who were its solid, dependable, law-respecting citizens. It might have been well to go to the trouble of finding who of Gibeon’s residents were in sympathy with her campaign of disclosures, but she had not done so. She stood alone, without the approval of those who worked with her.

She saw how she had plunged into things with her habitual impulsiveness, without giving consideration to facts or consequences. Without intending it to be so, she had so arranged matters that the battle stood as theFree Pressagainst the world. How much better it would have been to move cautiously; to be sure of her ground; to know she could rely upon powerful support. She wondered if it were too late....

At this stage in her reflections, George Bogardus,undertaker, darkened her door. George was not a youth, but he simulated youth. He wore the sort of clothes one sees in magazine illustrations—with exaggerations. He wore spats. A handkerchief with a colored border allowed its corner to peer from his breast pocket, and useless eyeglasses hung from a broad black ribbon. If George were seen standing in the window of some clothing store catering to the trade of those who dress by ear rather than by eye, he would have been perfection. Once George saw a play in Boston, and since that day he had impersonated a young English nobleman who had been its hero. His speech was a quaint mingling of New England intonation and idiom with what he could remember of the inflections and vocal mannerisms of Lord Algernon Pauncefote.

“Aw—I say,” he began, lifting his eyeglasses to his nose. “Aw—Miss Lee.”

“Yes, Mr. Bogardus.”

“I say—this is the day we kin start depositin’ our votes, hain’t it?... What?”

“In the Handsomest-Man contest?”

“Er—precisely. Y’understand—aw—have no interest myself. Not the least.” This was Lord Pauncefote at his best. “Buy m’ friends. What? Cheerio! Eh?”

“Of course, Mr. Bogardus.”

“Er—say, who else has got any votes in?”

“Nobody, as yet.”

“Satisfactory, very. Yes, yes.... Lance Bangs hain’t entered yit?”

“Not yet.”

“I fawncy ’e will be,” said Mr. Bogardus. “Aw—permit me to—er—deposit with you—aw—eighteen of these so-called coupons.... Guess that’ll give me as good a start as any, seems as though.”

“Yes, indeed, Mr. Bogardus. Good luck to you.”

“Er—notice anything?” He toyed with the ribbon on his eyeglasses and cast an arch glance upon Carmel.

“Oh yes, indeed! How distinguished it makes you look!”

He purred. “That’s the way I calc’late to look. How was it that feller said it in French. Seems like I can’t twist my tongue around French.... Eh?... Oh, dis-tan-gay. Sounds kind of, don’t it. Say.”

He turned toward the door, but paused. “Heard the news?” he asked.

“What news?”

“Aw—fawncy an editor askin’ that. Fawncy!... They’re goin’ to declare the office of sheriff vacant and git the Governor to appoint Jenney to the job.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s bein’ talked all over. Jenney says so himself. Rippin, eh? What?”

So they dared go as far as that—to appoint to the high office of sheriff of the county a man such as Deputy Jenney! The thought was not without its pleasant facets. If she had forced them to take such a step it must mean she was reckoned as dangerous.... She hugged that thought to her breast.

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