Mr. Amzi Montgomery thought it only proper to learn all that was possible of the affairs of his customers. This was the part of wisdom in a cautious banker; and he was distressed when checks that were not self-explanatory passed through the receiving-teller's window. A small bank is a good place in which to sharpen one's detective sense. Every check tells a story and is in some degree a clue.
No account on his bank's ledgers was more often scrutinized than that of Nancy Bartlett, and when she deposited a draft for $2115.15, the incident was not one to be passed lightly. No such sum had ever before been placed to Nan's credit. He knew that she received five- and ten- and even fifty-dollar drafts from Eastern periodicals, and he had touched these with reverent hands: but two thousand dollars in a lump from one of the best-known publishers in the country staggered Amzi. To add to his mystification, half the amount plus one cent, to-wit, $1057.58, was immediately transferred to Thomas Kirkwood's account, and this left Amzi away up in the air. Just what right Tom Kirkwood had to participate in Nan's earnings Amzi did not know, nor did he see immediately any way of finding out.
What did happen, though, coincident with this event, and much to his gratification, was the installation of a girl-of-all-work in Kirkwood's house. Phil had been dislodged from the kitchen, and Amzi was mightily relieved by this. A kitchen was no place for his niece, that flower of the Montgomery flock. His spirits rose when Phil hailed him one morning as he stood baring his head to the November air on the bank steps, and told him that her occupation was gone. She made the confession ruefully; it was unfair for herfather to discharge her just as she was getting the hang of the range and learning to broil a steak without incinerating it. "Just for that" she would spend a great deal of time in Main Street, and ruin her constitution at Struby's soda-fountain.
While Amzi was still trying to account for Nan's check, two other incidents contributed further to his perplexities. On his way home one evening he saw Nan and Kirkwood walking together. It was only a fair assumption that the two friends had met by chance and that Kirkwood was merely accompanying Nan to her door, as he had every right to do. They were walking slowly and talking earnestly. To avoid passing them, Amzi turned off at the first cross-street, but stood for a moment staring after them. Then the next evening he had gone to call at the Bartletts' and all his intervening speculations were overthrown when he found Kirkwood there alone with Rose, Nan being, it seemed, in Indianapolis on a visit. Rose and Kirkwood had evidently been deeply engrossed, too, when Amzi interrupted their conference with the usual thump of the drumstick. The piano, he observed, was closed, and it was inexplicable that Kirkwood should be spending an unmusical evening with Rose. Nor was Phil with her father. This was another damaging fact. It was a blow to Amzi to find that such things could happen in his own town, and under his very eyes.
If it hadn't been for Phil's party, the preparations for which gave him plenty to do, Amzi's winter would have opened most unhappily; but Phil's party was an event of importance not only in her life, but in Amzi's as well. Everybody who had the slightest title to consideration received an invitation. He was glad his sisters had suggested that the Holtons be invited. It gave him an excuse for opening the doors wide. He heard much from his kinsfolk about the prosperity of the Holtons, who were held up to him in rebuke for his own sluggish business methods. He wanted his sisters and the rest of the world to know that the First National Bank of Montgomery aroused in him no jealous pangs.
Phil arrived at Amzi's early and ran upstairs to take offher wraps. When this was accomplished and her Aunt Fanny's housemaid, lent for the occasion, had duly admired her, she knocked boldly on her uncle's door.
"Come in, you Phil," he shouted.
Amzi stood before his chiffonier in his shirt sleeves, trying to make a bow of his white tie. A cigar, gripped firmly in his teeth, was not proving of much assistance in the operation. As Phil crossed the room, he jerked off the strip of lawn and threw it into the open drawer.
"See what you've done? See all that litter? All that stuff crumpled up and wasted just on your account? I told that fellow in Indianapolis to give me the ready-made kind that buckles behind, but he wouldn't listen; said they don't keep 'em any more. And look at that! It's a good thing I got a dozen! Thunder!"
The "Thunder" was due to the fact that in his excess of emotion over the difficulties with his raiment, his eyes had not until that instant taken in Phil. His jaw fell as he stared and tears filled his eyes. Above the soft folds of her white crêpe gown the firm clean lines of her shoulders and throat were revealed and for the first time he fully realized that the Phil who had gladdened his days by her pranks—Phil the romp and hoyden—had gone, and that she would never be quite the same again. There was a distinct shock in the thought. It carried him back to the day when her mother had danced across the threshold from youth to womanhood, with all of Phil's charm and grace and her heart of laughter.
Phil fanned herself languidly, feigning to ignore his bewilderment. An aigrette in her hair emphasized her height. She lifted her arms and, whistling softly, pirouetted about the room. Her movements were those of vigorous, healthy youth. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks aglow.
"Thunder!" gasped Amzi, feeling absently of his collar. "Is that you, Phil?"
"Generally speaking, itain't, Amy. What do you think of the gladness of these joyful rags anyhow?"
"You look right, Phil. You've grown about six inches since I saw you last. High heels?"
She thrust out a slipper for his inspection.
"Those clothes are not as bad as some I've seen. I don't mind the low-in-the-neck effect when there's a neck to show like yours. Most of 'em look like the neck of a picked gander. I guess Fanny did about the right thing. Fanny's taste is usually pretty fair."
"Oh, the whole syndicate took a hand in it," said Phil with a sigh. "They nearly wore me out; but they were so busy consulting each other that they didn't notice that I chose the crêpe myself. But I wanted you to like my things, Amy."
"Of course I like 'em. You certainly look grand."
He rummaged in one of the chiffonier drawers.
"Just wait a minute," he said; "you've got to fix this fool thing for me." He placed a fresh tie round his white-wing collar and loosely crossed the ends. "I ain't going to take any chances of spoiling this. Now, Phil, do your noblest."
"With gloves on? Well, I'm used to doing daddy's over again, so here goes."
He stood with his chin in air while she tied the bow. Her youth, her loveliness, her red lips, compressed at the crucial moment when the bow took form, moved and thrilled him. No one in the world had ever been so dear to him as Phil! When she rested her hands on his shoulders and tilted her head to one side to study her handiwork he raised himself on his toes and lifted his hands, in one of which he had concealed something.
"Bend your head a little, Phil; I ought to have a ladder for this."
And in a moment he drew down upon her neck a chain with a pendant of pearls, which he had chosen with the greatest care at the best jeweler's in Indianapolis.
"Now look at yourself!"
She sprang to the mirror, and while she was exclaiming over it, he remarked, "I guess it don't make you look muchworse, Phil. But it doesn't make you look much nicer. Thunder! Nothing could!"
"Amy! I'm going to muss you up!" she cried, wheeling round.
"Phil—don't you touch me; don't you dare!"
He backed away and began drawing on his coat, and she abandoned the idea of mussing him to make sure his tie didn't crawl up over his collar. She clasped him tight and kissed him on the mouth.
"What a dear old pal you are, Amy," she said, laying her cheek against his. "Don't you ever think I don't appreciate what you do for me—what you are to me!"
"I guess that's all right, Phil," he said, and turned round to the chiffonier and blew his nose furiously. "Where's Tom?"
"I guess daddy's gone downstairs."
"Well, most of your aunts are on the job somewhere and we'd better go down and start this party. I hear the fiddlers tuning up."
Amzi II had built a big house with a generous hall and large rooms, and it had been a matter of pride with Amzi III to maintain it as it had been, refusing to listen to the advice of his sisters that he shut off part of it. Amzi liked space, and he was not in the least dismayed by problems of housekeeping. In preparing for Phil's party he had had all the white woodwork repainted, and the floors of the drawing- and living-rooms had been polished for dancing.
In Montgomery functions of all sorts begin early. The number of available public vehicles is limited, and by general consent the citizens take turns in the use of them. There hadn't been a party at the Montgomery homestead since the marriage of the last of the Montgomery girls. It was not surprising that to-night many people thought a little mournfully of the marriage of the first! The launching of Phil afforded opportunity for contrasting her with her mother; she was or she was not like Lois; nearly all the old people had an opinion one way or another.
Among the early arrivals was Mrs. John Newman King. Mrs. King, at eighty, held her own as the person of chief social importance in town. The Montgomerys were a good second; but their standing was based merely upon long residence and wealth; whereas Mrs. King had to her credit not only these essential elements of provincial distinction, but she had been the wife of a United States Senator in the great days of the Civil War. She had known Lincoln and all the host of wartime heroes. Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman had been her guests right there in Montgomery—at the big place with the elms and beeches, all looking very much to-day as it did in the stirring sixties. Mrs. King wore a lace cap and very rustling silk, and made pretty little curtsies. She talked politics to gentlemen, and asked women about their babies, and was wholly charming with young girls.
She paused before Phil, in the semicircle that included Amzi and his sisters with their husbands, and Tom Kirkwood.
"My dear child, on this proud occasion I want to say that the day you fell out of the cherry tree in my back yard and broke your arm and came into the house to get a sand tart as usual before going home, just as though nothing had happened, I loved you and I have loved you ever since. And you didn't cry either!"
"I didn't cry, Aunt Jane, because I hadn't sense enough to know I'd been hurt!"
"You were always a child of spirit! It's spirit that counts in this life. And for all we know in the next one, too. Don't you let all these relations of yours spoil you; I've known all the Montgomerys ever since your great-grandfather came here from Virginia, and you please me more than all the rest of 'em put together. Do you hear that, Amzi!"
Amzi was prepared to hear just this; he was nigh to bursting with pride, for Mrs. King was the great lady of the community and her opinion outweighed that of any dozen other women in that quarter of Indiana.
Montgomery is just a comfortable, folksy, neighborlytown, small enough to make hypocrisy difficult and unnecessary. In a company like this that marked Phil's entrance upon the great little world, no real Montgomeryite remembered who had the most money, or the costliest automobile, or the largest house. The Madison professors, who never had any hope of earning more than fifteen hundred dollars a year if they lived forever, received the special consideration to which they were entitled; and Judge Walters might be hated by most of the lawyers at the bar for his sharp admonitions from the bench, but they all respected him for his sound attainments and unquestioned probity. Among others who were presented to Phil (as though they hadn't known her all her life!) were a general and a colonel and other officers of the line, including Captain Joshua Wilson, poet and county recorder, and the editors of the two newspapers, and lawyers and doctors and shopkeepers, and, yes, clerks who stood behind counters, and insurance agents and the postmaster, all mingling together, they and their children, in the most democratic fashion imaginable.
"We're all here," said old General Wilks, who had been a tower of strength in the Army of the Tennessee, "and we're the best people of the best state on earth. I claim the privilege of age, Amzi, to kiss the prettiest girl in Indiana."
Beyond question the arrival of the William Holtons, with their niece and nephew from Indianapolis, caused a stir. They were among the late comers, and the curious were waiting to witness their reception, which proved to be disappointingly undramatic. Their welcome in no wise differed from that accorded to other guests. Every one said that Charles Holton was a handsome fellow, and his sister Ethel a very "nice" though rather an insipid and colorless young woman. It was generally understood that Amzi's sisters had forced his hand. The conservatives were disposed to excuse Amzi for permitting the Holtons to be invited; but they thought the Holtons displayed bad taste in accepting. It was Phil's party, and no Holton had any business to be connected with anything that concerned Phil. And TomKirkwood's feelings ought to have been considered, said his old friends.
"You see," Charles Holton remarked to Phil, when he had bowed over her hand with a good deal of manner, "I really did give up that New York trip. I would have come back from China to see you in that gown!"
The musicians (five artists from the capital, and not the drummer and piano-thumper usually considered adequate in Montgomery for fraternity and class functions) now struck up the first number.
"Please give me a lot of dances," begged Charles, looking at Phil's card.
"One! Just one!" replied Phil.
"You are bound to be a great tyrant; you should be merciful to your humblest subject."
"I haven't seen any of the humility yet," she laughed.
Her Uncle Lawrence Hastings had undertaken to manage the dance and he glided away with her to the strains of the first waltz. Hastings boasted a velvet collar to his dress-coat, and the town had not yet ceased to marvel that fortune had sent to its door a gentleman so exquisite, so finished, so identified with the most fascinating of all the arts. Hastings had for the social affairs of Montgomery a haughty scorn. It pained him greatly to be asked to a neighbor's for "supper," particularly when it was quite likely that the hostess would herself cook and serve the food; and the Fortnightly Assembly, a club of married folk that met to dance in Masonic Hall, was to him the tamest, the dullest of organizations, and the fact that his brother-in-law Waterman, who waltzed like a tipsy barrel, enjoyed those harmless entertainments had done much to embitter Hastings's life. Hastings imagined himself in love frequently; the Dramatic Club afforded opportunities for the intense flirtations in which his nature delighted. The parents of several young women who had taken part in his amateur theatricals had been concerned for their daughters' safety. And now Phil interested him—this new Phil in city clothes. The antics of Phil, the tomboy ofMain Street, had frequently aroused his indignation; Phil, a débutante in an evening gown that he pronounced a creation of the gods, was worthy of serious attention. She was, he averred, Hermione, Rosalind, Portia, Beatrice, combined in one perfect flower of womanhood.
"You are adorable, Phil," he sighed, when the music ceased, leaving them at the end of the living-room. "A star danced and you were born."
"That is very sweet, Lawrince," said Phil; "but here comes my next partner. You mustn't stand in the way of the young men."
The very lightest laughing emphasis on "young" made a stab of this. He posed in a window and watched her, with his gloomiest Hamlet-like air, until his wife, noting this familiar symptom, interrupted his meditations and commissioned him to convoy a lady with an ear-trumpet to the dining-room.
The party was going merrily; there was no doubt of its complete success. Some of the older folk remarked upon the fact that Phil had danced with Charles Holton; and he danced well. There was a grace in the Holtons, and Charles was endowed with the family friendliness. He made a point of speaking to every one and of dancing with the wall-flowers. It was noted presently that he saw Mrs. King to her carriage, and was otherwise regardful of the old folks.
Phil had wondered whether Fred Holton would come. She had hoped he would when she asked him at her uncle's farm, and the formal invitation had been dispatched to R.F.D. 7 as promised.
It was ten o'clock when Fred appeared. Phil saw him over her partner's shoulder talking to Amzi in the hall door, and as she swept by him in the dance she caught his eye. Fred had come late out of sheer timidity, but he had arrived at a moment when the gayety was at its height.
His diffidence had been marked even in his college days, and he was unused to gatherings of this kind. The proximity of so many gay, laughing people was a real distress to him.And if the other members of his family were able to overlook Jack Holton's great sin, Fred was acutely conscious of it now that Phil had dawned on his horizon. He had no sooner entered the house than he regretted his temerity in coming; and he had come merely to see Phil—that was the whole of it. Nor did the thought of this now contribute to his comfort. His glimpses of her as she danced up and down the room with three partners in turn—one of them his brother—set his pulses throbbing. Phil in her simple white gown—this glowing, joyous woman was no longer of his world. For the first time in his life his heart was shot through with jealousy. He had always felt Charles's superiority, but with a younger brother's loyal admiration he had not resented it. He resented it now. Fred had resurrected a cutaway coat for this adventure, and he was acutely aware that there were more dress-coats in evidence than he had imagined were available in Montgomery. Amzi, who had greeted him kindly, introduced him to a visiting girl whose name he did not catch, and he was doing his best to present an appearance of ease in talking to her. It had been a long time since he had danced, and he did not know the new steps. The girl asked him why he did not invite her to dance, and this added to his discomfiture. There is no greater unhappiness than that of the non-dancing young man at a dancing-party. He is drawn to such functions by a kind of fascination; he does not understand why other young men with no better brains than his are able to encircle the waists of the most beautiful girls and guide them through difficult evolutions. He vows that he will immediately submit himself to instruction and lift himself from the pits of torment.
The visiting girl was carried off, evidently to her relief and delight, by a strange young man and Fred was left stranded in an alcove. He had never felt so lonesome in his life. Phil vanished and now that he no longer enjoyed even his earlier swift glimpses of her, his dejection increased. He was meditating an escape when, as his eyes sought her, she stood suddenly breathless beside him. A divinity had no right thusto appear unheralded before mortal eyes. Fred blushed furiously and put out his hand awkwardly. Phil's latest partner begged for another dance; there was to be an extra, he pleaded; but she dismissed him with a wave of her fan. There had been high-school dances where Phil had learned to steel her heart against the importunate.
"Why didn't you come and speak to me?" demanded Phil when they were alone.
"I was just waiting for a chance. I didn't want to bother you."
"Well, you'll have to do better than this! You're the only person in the house who hasn't spoken to me! But it was nice of you to come: it must be a trouble to come to town at night when you live so far." She sat down in the window-seat and bade him do likewise. "You did see Uncle Amy, didn't you? I saw you talking to him; but you ought to have come earlier while there was a receiving-line ready for you. Now you'll have to look around for everybody; you have to speak to my three aunts and all my uncles and my father."
"I'll be glad to," declared Fred; and then realizing the absurdity of his fervor in consenting to speak to the aunts and uncles he laughed.
"You're scared," said Phil. "And if you won't tell anybody I'm a little bit scared myself, just because everybody tells me how grown-up I am."
The music struck up and a young cavalier—a college senior, who had worshiped Phil since his freshman year—came to say that it was his dance. She told him that she was tired and would have to be excused. He wished to debate the question, but she closed the incident promptly and effectively.
"I'm busy talking to Mr. Holton; and I can see you any time, Walter."
Walter departed crestfallen; she treated him as though he were still a freshman. He was wearing his first dress-coat and the tallest collar he could buy, and it was humiliating to be called Walter and sent away by a girl who preferred to talkto a rustic-looking person in a cutaway coat and a turnover collar with a four-in-hand tie.
Phil carried Fred off for a tour of the rooms, pausing to introduce him to her father and to the three aunts, to whom she said how kind it was of Fred to come; that he was the only person she had personally asked to the party. And it was just like Phil, for years the loyal protector of all the discards among the cats and dogs in town, to choose a clodhopper for special attention. Kirkwood, who had forgotten Fred's existence, greeted him in his pleasant but rather absent way.
The torrid Wabash Valley summers of many years had not greatly modified the chill in Kirkwood's New England blood, and the isolation in which he had lived so long had deepened his reserve. The scholarly stamp had not been effaced by his abandonment of the academic life, and many of his fellow-townsmen still addressed him as Professor Kirkwood. His joy to-night lay in Phil's happiness; his heart warmed to the terms of praise in which every one spoke of her. It touched his humor that his daughter was in some degree a public character. Her escapades in childhood and youth had endeared her to the community. In her battles with the aunts public sympathy had been pretty generally with Phil. "Otherwise Phyllis—?" Many a smile had been occasioned by that question. Tom Kirkwood knew all this and was happy and grateful. He had not attended a large gathering of his fellow-townfolk since his wife left him, so that his daughter's coming-out was an event of double significance for him.
The aunts were somewhat critical of the arrangements for refreshing the guests. Amzi, refusing to heed their suggestions that the catering be entrusted to an Indianapolis firm, had arranged everything himself. The cakes were according to the best recipes known at 98 Buckeye Lane, and Rose and Nan were there, assisting, by Amzi's special command. During the evening he consulted first one and then the other; and when his sisters asked icily for instructions, he told themto look handsome and keep cheerful. This was unbrotherly, of course, but Amzi was supremely happy.
The older people had been served in the dining-room and many of them had already gone or were now taking leave, and the waiters were distributing little tables for the young people.
"Let me see, you were to have refreshments with me, Miss Kirkwood; I have a table in the drawing-room alcove all ready," said Charles Holton to Phil as she still stood talking to Fred in the hall. Fred had been wondering just what his own responsibilities were in the matter. Charles had greeted him affably; but Fred's diffidence deepened in his brother's presence: Charles was a master of the social arts, whereas Fred had only instinctive good-breeding to guide him. Fred was about to move away, but Phil detained him.
"Isn't it curious that you two brothers should have the same idea," said Phil artlessly. "It's really remarkable! But I think"—and she turned gravely to Fred—"I think, as long as you came too late for a dance with me, I shall eat my piece of pie with you—and I think right up there on the stairs would be an excellent place to sit!"
Fred, radiant at the great kindness of this, went off to bring the salad for which she declared she was perishing. Charles looked at her with an amused smile on his face.
"You're a brick! It's mighty fine of you to be so nice to Fred. Dear old Fred!"
Phil frowned.
"Why do you speak of your brother in that way?"
"How did I speak of him?"
"Oh, as if he were somebody to be sorry for!"
"Oh, you misunderstood me! I was merely pleased that you were being nice to him. Fred would never have thought of asking you to sit on the stairs with him—I knew that; it was just like you to save him from embarrassment."
"Oh!"
He was piqued by the connotations suggested by Phil's "Oh!" Phil was not only stunningly pretty, but she had wits.It was his way to impress girls he met, and there was no time for dallying now; Fred would return in a moment and take Phil away from him. He intended to see a great deal of her hereafter, and he believed that in the opening skirmishes of a flirtation a bold shot counts double. Phil waved her hand in the direction of the table where the Bartletts, her father, and Amzi were seating themselves, and when she looked round at Holton, she found his eyes bent upon her with a fair imitation of wistfulness and longing which in previous encounters of this sort he had found effective.
"I don't believe you realize how beautiful you are. I've been over the world a good deal and there's no one anywhere who touches you. There are lots of nice and pretty girls, of course, but you are different; you are a beautiful woman! To see you like this is to know for the first time what beauty is. And I know—I appreciate the beautiful soul there is in you—that shines out of your eyes!" His voice was low, and a little tremulous. "I want the chance to fight for you! From that first moment I saw you in your father's office I have thought of nothing but you. That's why I came—why I gave up business of real importance to come. And I shall come again and again, until you tell me I may come no longer."
His voice seemed to break with the stress of deep feeling. Phil listened, first in surprise that yielded perhaps to fear, and then her head bent and she looked down at her fan which she slowly opened and shut. She did not lift her eyes until she was sure he had finished.
"By the way," she remarked, with studied carelessness, as she continued to play with her fan, "I wish I could quote things offhand like that. It must be fine to have such a memory! Let me see, what is that from—'The Prisoner of Zenda' or 'How Lulu Came to Logansport'? Oh!" (with sudden animation as Fred came bearing two plates) "there's my young life-saver now!" Then to Charles again: "Well, I shall certainly look up that quotation. It was ever so nice of you to remind me of it!"
Holton struck his gloved hands together smartly in his irritation and turned away. Phil was undoubtedly different; but she was not through yet. She called him back, one foot on the stair, and said in a confidential tone, "That nice little Orbison girl,—the blonde one, I mean, who's visiting here from Elwood,—I wish you'd take good care of her; I'm afraid she isn't having a wildly exciting time."
"This is what I call being real comfortable and cozy," she remarked to Fred as they disposed themselves on one of the lower steps.
Below and near at hand were most of the members of her family. She saw from the countenances of the three aunts that they were displeased with her, but the consciousness of this did not spoil life for her. She humanly enjoyed their discomfiture, knowing that it was based upon the dinginess of Fred's clothes and prospects. Their new broad tolerance of the Holtons did not cover the tragic implications of Fred's raiment. They meant to protect Phil in every way, and yet there was ground for despair when she chose the most undesirable young man in the county to sit with in the intimacy of the refreshment hour at her own coming-out. Mrs. Fosdick leaned back from her table to ask Amzi in an angry whisper what he meant by allowing Phil to invite Fred Holton to her party.
"What's that? Allow her! I didn't allow her! Nobody allows Phil! Thunder!" And then, after he had picked up his fallen napkin, he turned to add: "There's nothing the matter with Fred that I know of!"
The comparative quiet that now reigned was much more to Fred's liking than the gayety of the dance. Phil treated their companionship as a matter of course and his timidity and restraint vanished. Nothing in his experience had ever been so agreeable and stimulating as this. That Phil, of all humankind, should have made this possible was to him inexplicable. It could not be that when this was over, he should be hurled back to Stop 7.
Phil, who had disposed of Charles's confession ofadoration to her own satisfaction, now seemed bent upon winning some praise from the halting tongue of Charles's brother. To make conversation she directed attention to her new trinket, holding out the chain for Fred to admire the pearls. In doing this he saw the pulse throbbing in her slim throat, and this in itself was disturbing. Her nearness there on the stairway affected him even more than on the orchard slope where he had experienced similar agitations. When she laughed he noticed an irregularity in one of her white teeth; and there was a tiny mole on her neck, just below her left ear. He did not know why he saw these things, or why seeing them increased his awe. It seemed wonderful that she could so easily slip her hands out of her gloves without drawing the long gauntlets from her arms. Farther and farther receded the Phil of the kitchen apron with whom he had bargained for the sale of the saddest apples that had ever been brought to Montgomery by a self-respecting farmer! When her father came to the stair-rail to ask if she felt a draft from the upper windows, Fred was shaken with fear; the thought that the airs of heaven might visit affliction upon this brown-haired and brown-eyed marvel was at once a grief to him. He felt the world rock at the bare thought of any harm ever coming to her.
"As if," said Phil, when her father had been reassured, "the likes of me could take cold. What do you do all day on a farm in winter weather?"
"Let me see; I chopped wood, this morning; and I'd bought some corn of Perry—that is, of your uncle—and went over with the wagon to get it; and this afternoon I brought the wood I had chopped to the woodshed; and then I went out to look at my wheatfield, and almost bought a cow of another neighbor—but didn't quite make a bargain. And then I began to get ready to come to your party."
"You must have worked awfully hard to get ready," said Phil, "for you were late getting here."
"Well, I loafed around outside for an hour or so before I came in," and he smiled ruefully. "I'm not used to parties."
"You seem to get on pretty well," said Phil reassuringly.
One of the waiters had brought them ice-cream and cake, and after she had tasted the cake Phil caught Rose Bartlett's eye and expressed ecstasy and gratitude by a lifting of the head, a closing of the eyes, a swift folding of the hands.
"How are you going to amuse yourself out there by yourself all winter?" she remarked to Fred; "I shouldn't think there would be much to do!"
"Oh, there won't be any trouble about that! I've got plenty to do and then I want to do some studying, too. I'm going up to the University in January to hear lectures—farming and stock-raising and things like that. Perry has put me up to it. And then in between times I want to get acquainted with the neighbors; they're all mighty nice people and kind and friendly. That sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it?"
"Well, it sounds wholesome if not wildly exciting. I've lost my job. They took my kitchen away from me just as I was getting started; and I haven't anything much to do—except being sociable."
"Of course, you've come out now, and you'll be going to receptions and dances all the time."
"I can't exactly cry O joy, O joy at the thought of it. There must have been gypsies in my family somewhere. You'll think I'm crazy, but I'd like to go out right now and run a mile. But there will be skating afterwhile; and snowstorms to go walking in. I like walking in snowstorms,—the blustering kind where you can't see and go plunking into fences."
Fred agreed to this; he readily visualized Phil tramping 'cross-country in snowstorms. "It's an awful thing," Phil resumed, "to have to be respectable. Aunt Kate wants to go South this winter and take me with her. But that would mean being shut up in a hotel. If daddy didn't have to work, I'd make him take me to California where we could get a wagon and just keep camping. Camping out is the most fun there is inthisworld. There's a nice wooziness inwaking up at night and hearing an owl right over your head; and there are the weather changes, when you go to sleep with the stars shining and wake up and hear the rain slapping the tent. And when you've gone for a long tramp and come back tired and wet and hungry, and sit and talk about things awhile and then tumble into bed and get up in the morning to do it all over again—! Does that sound perfectly wild? If it does, then I'm crazy, for that's the kind of thing I like—not to talk about it at parties in my best clothes, but to go out and do it and keep on doing it forever and ever."
She put the last crumb of the Bartlett cake into her mouth meditatively.
"I like the outdoors, too," said Fred, for whom this statement of her likings momentarily humanized his goddess and brought her within the range of his understanding. "The earth is a good old earth. There are no jars in the way she does her business. There's something that makes me feel sort o' funny inside when I go out now and see that little wheat-patch of mine, and know that the snow is going to cover it, and that with any kind of good luck it's going to live right through the cold and come to harvest next summer. And it gives me a queer feeling, and always did, the way it all goes on—and has always gone on since the beginning of the world. When I was a little boy here in Montgomery and went to Center Church Sunday-School, the most interesting things in the Bible were about those Old Testament people, raising cattle and tending flocks and farming just like the people right here at home. I suppose it's a feeling like that I always had that makes me want to be a farmer and live close to the ground—that and wanting to earn a living," he concluded, smiling. He was astonished at his own speech, which had expressed ideas that had never crystallized in his mind before.
"That," said Phil, "is what poetry is—feeling like that."
"I suppose it is," Fred assented.
The waiters were relieving the guests of their burdens,and carrying out the tables, and there was a stir through the house as the musicians took their places. Phil rose and nodded to a young gentleman who sought her for the next dance.
"I've got to go," said Fred. "I'll just about catch my last car. It's been fine to be here. And I've enjoyed talking to you. It was mighty kind of you to sit up here with me. I shall always remember it."
Phil was drawing on her gloves, looking down upon the hall through which the guests from the other rooms were now passing.
At this moment the outer hall door opened cautiously and a man stepped inside, closed it noisily, and placed his back against it with an air of defiance. He stood blinking in the strong light, moving his head from side to side as though in the effort to summon speech. The waiter who had been stationed at the door was helping to clear away the tables, but he hurried forward and began directing this latest guest where to leave his wraps. The stranger shook his head protestingly. It was quite evident that he was intoxicated. He wore a long overcoat spattered with mud, and there was a dent in the derby hat he removed with elaborate care and then swung at arm's length. The doorways filled. Something not down in the programme was occurring. A sudden hush fell upon the house; whispered inquiries as to the identity of the stranger, who stood drunkenly turning his gaze from left to right, passed guardedly from lip to lip. Amzi, Kirkwood, and the Bartletts remained near where they had risen from their table, sharing the general consternation. Amzi was the first to recover; he took a step toward the door, but paused as the man began to speak slowly and drunkenly. He seemed annoyed by his inability to control his tongue and his voice rose raspingly.
"'M looking for my bruf—my bruf—my brother. Tole me 'tis h-h—'tis house he was 't Amzi's to party. Holtons and Mungummer—Montgomerys all good fr'ens now. Bes' ole fam'lies in town. 'Pologize for coming s' late; notime change my clothes; disgraceful—puf-puf-perfectly disgraceful, that's whasmasser. Want t' see Will. Anybody here seen Will? Don' tell me Will's gone home s' early; mos' unfashion'ble; mos' disgracefully unfashion'ble!"
Jack Holton had come back, and this was the manner of his coming. To most of those who saw him that night tipsily planted against the door of the old Montgomery house, he was an entire stranger, so long had been his exile; but to Amzi, to Tom Kirkwood, to Rose and Nan Bartlett there came at the instant of identification a thronging weight of memories. Some one had called William Holton—he was discussing local business prospects with Paul Fosdick—and the crowd about the drawing-room door made way for him. His nephew Charles was at his elbow.
"Bring my coat and hat to the back door, Charlie, and see that your Aunt Nellie gets home," he said; and people spoke admiringly afterward of the composure with which he met the situation.
Amzi was advancing toward the uninvited guest and William turned to him.
"This is unpardonable, Mr. Montgomery, but I want you to know that I couldn't have foreseen it. I am very sorry. Good-night!"
Preceded by Amzi, William led his brother, not without difficulty, through the hall to the dining-room and into the kitchen, where Charles joined him in a moment by way of the back stairs.
"It's Uncle Jack, is it?" Charles asked, looking at the tall figure with a curiosity that was unfeigned.
"M' dear boy, I s'pose 's possible I'm your lon—lon—long los' uncle; but I haven't zonner—haven't zonner your acquaintance. Want to see Will. Got prodigal on zands, Will has. Seems t'ave come back mos' 'no—mos' 'nopportune 'casion. All right, ole man: jus' give me y' arm and I get 'long mos' com-for-ble, mos' comfort-a-ble," he ended with a leer of triumph at having achieved the vowel.
Charles helped him down the steps to the walk and thenreturned to the house. In his unfamiliarity with its arrangements, he opened by mistake the door that led to a little den where Amzi liked to read and smoke. There quite alone stood Tom Kirkwood, his hands in his pockets, staring into the coal-fire of the grate. Charles muttered an apology and hastily closed the door.
Through the house rang the strains of a waltz, and the dance went on.
William Holton spoke the truth to Amzi when he said that he had had no warning of his brother's return. William, with all his apparent prosperity, was not without his troubles, and he took it unkindly that this brother, who for sixteen years had kept out of the way, should have chosen so unfortunate a moment for reintroducing himself to his native town. He had not set eyes on Jack since his flight with Lois Kirkwood, though Samuel had visited the Western coast several times on business errands and had kept in touch with him. William had been glad enough to forget Jack's existence, particularly as the reports that had reached him—even those brought back by the sanguine Samuel—had been far from reassuring as to Jack's status in Seattle.
Jack's return meant a recrudescence of wounds which time had seemingly healed, with resulting discomforts that might have far-reaching consequences. Mrs. William had a pride of her own, and it was unjust to her for a man who had so shocked the moral sensibilities of the town to thrust himself back upon his family, especially when he had chosen to present himself first at the domicile of the head of a house against which he had so grossly sinned.
William took Jack home and put him to bed; and when Charles followed a little later with Mrs. Holton, the prodigal slept the sleep of weary intoxication in her guest chamber.
The next day the town buzzed, and the buzzing was loud enough to make itself heard at the desk of the president of the First National Bank. William had left word at home that when Jack came to himself, he was to be dispatched to the bank forthwith. He meant to deal with this unwelcomepilgrim upon a business basis strictly, without any softening domestic influences. The honor of the Holtons was touched nearly and Jack must be got rid of. Mrs. Holton telephoned at eleven o'clock that Jack was on his way downtown, and William was prepared for the interview when his brother strolled in with something of his old jauntiness.
The door of the directors' room closed upon them. The word passed along Main Street that Jack and William were closeted in the bank. Phil, walking downtown on an errand, with the happiness of her party still in her eyes, was not without her sense of the situation. At the breakfast-table her father, deeply preoccupied, had brought himself with an effort to review the happier events of the party. Knowing what was in his mind Phil mentioned the untoward misfortune that had cast Jack Holton of all men upon the threshold of her uncle's house.
"It really didn't make any difference, daddy,—that man's coming. Everybody tried to forget it. And some of the young people didn't know him at all."
"No; it didn't matter, Phil. Your Uncle Amzi is a fine gentleman: I never fully appreciated his goodness and generosity as much as I did last night."
Phil did not know that Amzi had sought Kirkwood in the den where the lawyer had gone to take counsel with himself, and had blown himself purple in the face in his kind efforts to make light of the incident. The two men had never been drawn closer together in their lives than in that meeting.
"It wasn't Uncle Amy's fault that the William Holtons were asked to the party; I think it was Aunt Kate who started that. And when I heard of it, it was all over and the invitations had been sent," Phil said.
Kirkwood repeated his assurance that it made no difference in any way. And Phil remembered for a long time a certain light in his gentle, candid eyes as he said:—
"We get over most of our troubles in this world, Phil; and I want you to know that that particular thing doesn't hurt me any more. Only it was a shock; the man had aged soand his condition and the suddenness of it—But it's all over and it didn't spoil the party; that's the main thing."
Phil was immensely relieved, for she knew that her father told the truth.
Jack Holton greeted a number of old friends on his way to the bank, but the president emeritus of the college cut him. The cold stare he received from this old man, who had been president of Madison College for forty years, expressed a contempt that hurt. Mrs. King, in whose yard he had played as a boy, looked over his head, though he was confident she knew him. His nostrils caught no scent of roast veal in the familiar streets. At his brother's house his sister-in-law, whom he had never seen, had not appeared when he went down for his breakfast.
He followed his brother into the directors' room in a defiant humor. They took account of each other with a frank curiosity begotten of their long separation.
"You haven't changed much, Will. You've grown a little stouter than father did, but dear old Sam never lost his shape, and you're like him."
There was little resemblance between the two men. William's face, clean-shaven save for a mustache, showed few lines, though his hair had whitened at the temples. Jack's hair and mustache were well sprinkled with gray, and his crown was bald. He fingered a paper-weight on the table nervously. A history of dissipation was written legibly in his eyes and he had a disconcerting way of jerking his head.
"Damn it all! I guess you're not tickled to death to see me. And I need hardly say that if I hadn't been drunk, I wouldn't have turned up at old Amzi's on the night of that kid's coming-out party. Drunk when I struck town—hadn't been feeling well, and fell in with some old friends at Indianapolis and filled up. Hope you'll overlook my little indiscretions. Reckon the town would have found out I was here soon enough and there's nothing like coming right out inthe open. When they told me at your house you were at Amzi's, I couldn't believe it and I was just drunk enough to want to investigate."
William muttered something that Jack preferred to ignore.
"Well, I wasn't so drunk I didn't take in Kirkwood. Old Tom has held his own pretty well; but he's the type Time don't batter much. I'd thought a good deal about what might happen if we ever met—had rather figured on a little pistol work; but Lord! it's funny how damned soon we get over these things. Trifles, Will, trifles—bubbles of human experience that vanish in thin air. Damn it all! life's a queer business. We put our faith in women and they're a bad investment, damned uncertain and devilish hard to please, and shake you when the night falleth and you need a prop to lean on. By the way, your own consort ducked me this morning; I had to have breakfast alone, with only one of Africa's haughty daughters to break my eggs. I hope madam your wife is well. By the way, has she given any hostages to fortune? Thought I hadn't heard of it. You've treated me in a hell of a little brotherly fashion, Will. If it hadn't been for Sam, who was a true sport if I know one, I shouldn't have known anything about you, dead or alive."
William had listened with an almost imperceptible frown while he minutely studied his brother. The items he collected were not calculated to inspire confidence or quicken fraternal feeling. Jack, whom he remembered as fastidious in old times, was sadly crumpled. The cuffs of his colored shirt were frayed; there were spots on his tie, and his clothes looked as though they had been slept in. The lining of the ulster he had thrown across a chair had been patched, and threads hung where his legs had rubbed it. The impressions reflected in William's eyes were increasingly disagreeable ones, as he diagnosed moral, physical, and financial decrepitude. It was nothing short of impudence on Jack's part to intrude himself upon the town and upon his family. It waswith a slight sneer that William replied to his brother's long speech by ejaculating:—
"Well, I like your nerve! You come back drunk just when the community had begun to forget you, and wander into the last house in the world where you ought to show yourself. Your being drunk doesn't excuse you. Why didn't you tell me you were coming?"
Jack smiled ironically.
"Suppose you climb off your high horse for a little bit. If I have to get a permit from my only brother to come back to the town where I was born, things have come to a nice pass. Better cut all that out."
"You're certainly a past-master at making a mess of things," William continued. "Your coming back that way fits neatly into your departure. You needn't think people have forgotten that you ran off with another man's wife. And your coming back right now, just when the Montgomerys had buried the hatchet, was calculated with the Devil's own mind."
"So that's the tune, is it?" said Jack, stretching his arms upon the table and clasping his fingers to subdue their nervous twitchings.
"That's just the tune! This town isn't big enough to hold you and the rest of us. You've cost me a lot of money first and last. You made it necessary for us to pull away from Amzi and start all over again, and there was a prejudice against me from the start that I've just about lived down."
Jack grinned unpleasantly.
"Oh, the bank hasn't been terribly prosperous, then!"
William blinked at the thrust. He had given the conversation an unfortunate turn, and he sought uncomfortably for another line of attack. Jack unwittingly opened the way for him.
"You were the good boy of the family and used to be a pillar in the church. I have a distinct though melancholy impression that when I took myself hence you were passing the basket in Center Church every Sunday morning. I don'trecall that I eversawyou do it, but it was a matter of common knowledge in this town, Will, that you did that very thing. And being a Christian, just how do you square your effusive brotherly welcome with the gospel? The only reason God makes sinners is to give 'em a chance to repent. Without repentance what do you suppose would become of your churches anyhow?"
"I don't see any repentance in you; and I want to know right now what you've done with that woman?"
Jack blinked, then smiled and gave a laugh expressive of disdain and contempt.
"If you please, which woman?"
William's frown deepened. The one woman was certainly enough, and his rage was increased by the leer that accompanied the question.
"Oh, I dare say there have been enough of them! I mean the one you took away from here; I mean Lois Kirkwood."
"Oh, Lois!" He spoke as though surprised that she should be chosen for particular attention, and his lip curled scornfully. "When a man goes wrong, Will, he pays for it. Take it from me that that's one gospel truth that I've proved to my entire satisfaction. It's queer, Will, how soon a bonfire burns out—the bigger the fire the quicker it goes. I went plum crazy about that girl. She'd married the one particular man on earth who was least likely to make her happy. He bored her. And I guess her baby bored her, too,—she wasn't a domestic animal,—no pussy cat to sit by the fire and play with the baby and have hubby's slippers toasting when he came home to supper. And I had time to play with her; I wasn't so intellectual as Tom, but my nature was a damned sight more sympathetic. It looked as though we had been made for each other, and I was fooled into thinking so. And I was bored myself—this silly little town, with nothing to hold anybody. Lois and I were made for a bigger world—at least we thought so: and by Jove, it was funny how we fooled each other—it was altogether too damned funny!"
"I'm glad you take a humorous view of it," replied Williamcoldly. "Not satisfied with disgracing the family, you come back to rub it in. Where did you leave the woman? I suppose you've chucked her—the usual way."
Jack threw back his head and laughed.
"Well, I like that! You don't know what I had to put up with! She made me suffer, I can tell you! I don't believe she'd deny herself that she made it damned uncomfortable for me. She liked to spend money, for one thing, and I couldn't make it fast enough; and she wanted to mingle with the rich and gay, and our story had followed us, and it's funny, Will, what a lot of old-fashioned, stupid, Thursday-night-prayer-meeting and the-pastor-in-to-tea morality there is left in this fool world! It cut Lois up a good deal, being snubbed by people she wanted to stand well with. It gave me a jolt to find that I wasn't all-sufficient for her after all; which hurt some when we'd decided we could be happy alone together in the woods for the rest of our days. It's a long story, and I'm not going to talk about it. With the money I took away from here I began monkeying with real estate; it didn't seem that anybody out there could lose just then: but I was a bad guesser. In five years I had played in all my chips, and had to sneak around office buildings trying to sell life insurance, which wasn't dignified nor becoming in a member of the haughty house of Holton."
"Sam told me a different story. Why don't you tell the truth if you talk about it at all? You gambled and lost your money—that's what happened; and real estate speculation was only a side line. But Lois had money; I suppose you played that away, too. Sam never seemed quite clear about your relations with her."
"I guess he didn't! There's a queer woman, Will. The inscrutable ways of Providence were not in it with hers. She hated me, but she wouldn't let go of me; seemed to be her idea that shaking one man was enough and she wouldn't let me make her a widow a second time. By George, I couldn't shake her—I had to live off her!"
William shrugged his shoulders and scowled. It wasincredible that this could be his own brother who spoke thus of the gravest relationships of life. And it was with a steady sinking of spirit that it was beaten in upon him that this man had come back to plant himself at his door. He was busy calculating the effect upon himself, his family, and his business of the prodigal's return. He was shocked, disgusted, alarmed.
His wife had told him in the long vigil that followed her return from Amzi Montgomery's house, when she learned that her brother-in-law was sleeping off his spree in her guest-room, that Jack had to go. She was proud and arrogant, and she had no idea of relinquishing her social pre-eminence—not too easily won—in the town to which William Holton had brought her to live out her life. One or two of the old families had never received her with any cordiality, clearly by reason of the old scandal. And where there are only seventeen thousand people in a town the indifference of two or three, when they happen to include a woman like Mrs. King, was not to be ignored or borne without rancor. William's indignation was intensified as he reviewed Jack's disclosures from the angle his wife had drawn for him in the midnight conference. His curiosity was sharpened, however, as to the subsequent relationship of Jack and Lois Kirkwood. Seattle is a long way from Montgomery and lines of communication few and slight. Samuel, returning from his visits to the coast, had usually been too full of his own schemes to furnish any satisfactory details of Jack and his wife. William dropped his plumb-line in a new spot where he fancied the water would prove shallow.
"You lived off her, didn't you, until you had lived up all she had? The gospel didn't neglect her; she got her share of the punishment."
"Look here, Will, you mustn't make me laugh like that! You know I used to think I understood human nature, but I never started with that woman. I did live at her expense,—I had to,—and she stood for it until I got to hanging round the saloons too much. She used to pay my dues in theclub, damned if she didn't, until I got fired for too much poker in the chamber over the gate. I must say she was a good sport: as a fair-minded man, I've got to admit that. And she swung the lash over me—never laid it on, but made it sizz—whistle—till I'd duck and sniffle; and she did exactly what she pleased without caring a damn whether I liked it or not! By George, I knew she was a wonder when I took her off Kirkwood's hands, but she wasn't wonderful in just the way I thought she'd be. That was where the joke came in. And she made people like her; she could do that; and she got on, so that wherever she could go without me she was welcome. That was after people got sorry for her because she was hooked up to me; but most of 'em, I guess, liked her on her own account. A queer development, Will. For the past five years I've just been a piece of furniture, to be dusted and moved occasionally like an old rocking-chair that gets into a house, nobody knows exactly how, and is shoved around, trying corners where it won't be noticed much, until it winds up in the garret. But after all the corners had been tried,—she didn't have any garret; we lived mostly in hotels and flats,—I was gradually worked out on the second-hand man's wagon, and here I am."
"She kept her money, then?" asked William with assumed indifference.
"Will," said Jack with a mockingly confidential air, leaning forward on the table, "after the first two or three years I never knew whether she had a cent or not, that's the straight of it. Considering that she had thrown away her reputation like an old shoe just for me, and that we lived along under the same roof, that was the most astonishing thing of all. She began by handing me out a hundred now and then when I was broke; then it dropped to ten, and then it got down to a dollar a week,—humiliating, Will, considering that I had given up my interest in the ancient and honorable firm of Montgomery & Holton, Bankers, just for her! But when she shook me for good, I'm damned if she didn't give me a clean thousand just as a consolation prize."
William was more interested in this phase of the relationship than in anything that had gone before. He was aware of the local belief that Jack had thrown away his wife's share of her father's estate in his real estate speculations in Seattle and that Amzi supported her dutifully by a regular allowance; in fact, the three sisters had encouraged this impression by characteristic insinuations.
"What's become of her? Where is she now?"
"That's where you've got me stung: how do I know where she is! After she slipped me the thousand and bade me a long and chilling farewell, I used to keep track of her in one way or another. She had a restless streak in her,—that's why she couldn't stand Tom and the rest of it,—and when it was all peach blossoms and spring with us she liked to take spurts over the world. We used to run down to San Francisco for little sprees, and then when that played out she shifted to New York. But I've lost her trail—I don't any more know where she is than if I'd never laid eyes on her. She went abroad a couple of times and she may be over there now. Say, if Amzi's putting up for her you will lose your main competitor one of these days! She'd bust the biggest bank in Wall Street, that woman! She's a luxurious little devil, and a wonder for looks. Even the harsh trial of living with me didn't wear her to a frazzle the way you might suppose it would. I guess if I hadn't poisoned the wells for her, she could have shaken me for most any man she liked. By George, I'll get to weeping on your neck in a minute, just thinking about her. I started in to tell you what a miserable little wretch she is and I'm winding up by bragging about her. She's got that in her! But she'll bust Amzi before she winds up. And I hope you appreciate the value of that news. Old Amzi, if he hasn't changed, is a fat-head who's content to sit in his little bank and watch the world go by. And I guess he's got a nice bunch of brothers-in-law on his hands. Poor old Amzi! There was always something amusing about the cuss, even when he was a smug little roly-poly as a boy. But I passed his bank this morning and it lookedlike an undertaker's office. The contrast between that old tomb and your plant pleases me, Will; it soothes my family pride. You are an able man and I congratulate you on your success. Sam liked to cut didoes on thin ice a little too well; but you're a born banker—inherited it from father; and I guess I didn't do you so ill a turn after all when I cut loose with Lois and broke up the old partnership. There wasn't enough room in Montgomery & Holton for all of us."
Several times William shifted his position uneasily. His brother's flattery merely paved the way to a demand—he was confident of this; and he had no intention of yielding to demands. To begin advances to this melancholy wreck would be to establish a precedent for interminable benefactions. It was better to deal with the matter at once. A clerk called him out to speak to a customer and when he came back, Jack was moodily glaring out upon the little court at the rear of the bank. William did not seat himself again, but stood by the table, as though to indicate his intention of terminating the interview.
"I can't give you any more time. Just what have you come back for? I'm entitled to know, and we may as well have it out."
"What have I come back for? I've come back to stay, that's what I'm back for! I want a job, that's all, and if you won't give me one, I'd like to know just where your brotherly heart expects me to go."
"You can't stay here, Jack. You've got to clear out. I don't mean to be hard on you, and I'll give you enough to take you wherever you want to go; but you can't camp here; you've got to move on. If you'd come back like a gentleman, it might have been different; but the whole town's upset. I'd just about lived you down, and here you come back and stir up the whole mess. The way you came back puts us all in the hole; the sympathy of the community was swinging round to our side a little, and even the Montgomerys were making it clear that they were willing to let bygones be bygones and here you come to spoil it all! And you've not onlygot to go, but you've got to go now, this very day by the first train."
This was received blinkingly. Jack shook his head as though in pity for his brother's harshness.
"For a man brought up by a Christian father and mother to point the door to a long-lost brother is painful, Will. It wounds me deeply. I tell you right now that I'm not going away from here until I get good and ready. Do you follow me?"
He rested the tips of his fingers on the table and bent toward his brother with a cold glitter in his eyes. Under the mockery of his phrases a hot anger lurked.
"All right," said William. "Stay, then. But you can't hang yourself around my neck. Understand that right here."
"You haven't heard all my story yet—"
"I've heard all I'm going to hear. I've heard enough to make me sick. I hope nobody else in this town will ever hear it. It's worse than I had ever imagined—you allowing that woman to support you! And it's nauseating to think that you don't realize the rottenness of it. But you seem to be incapable of any decent feeling about anything."
"Stop sentimentalizing and listen to me. I didn't come back here to enter upon a new social career; I came back on business. You remember, Will, that Sam came West when you and he were selling bonds in this Sycamore Traction line on which I rode proudly home last night. I helped Sam sell a pretty big bunch of those bonds out there. Sam could sell anything—Sam was a wonder! and he planted a big bunch of those things along the coast—my friends, you know. Sam's dead and gone now and I ain't going to knock him—but Sam was an exuberant chap and he overcalculated the cost of building the road. That was on the construction company, but you and Sam were in that—same old game of working both sides of the street. It was just a mistake in figures, of course, but some of those people out there hear the road ain't doing well, and they're friends of mine, Will, valued friends, and now that Sam's goneit's up to you and me to take care of 'em—do you follow me?"
"If that's what you're up to you've made a big mistake. That road's one of the most successful traction lines in the West, and pays its bond interest on the dot."
"Nothing easier; but I happen to know that the last payment was made with borrowed money. Of course, only a little temporary accommodation, but just the same it wasn't paid out of earnings. And, Will, you ought to be mighty careful—you oughtn't to advance bank funds for such a purpose; it's damned bad business; it's downright immoral; that's all! But how about the bonds your construction company got—that nice little margin between a fair profit for building the road and a big fat steal at the expense of the bondholders? And you authorized the sale of bonds at eighty to pay the construction bill, got ninety, and pocketed the difference. Oh, you needn't get white and blink at me. I know what he did with his share of the boodle—he had to take care of his political chums he got into other schemes. I know all about Sam—he was always borrowing, we will call it, from Peter to pay Paul, and most of it got into Sam's pocket. Now here's my position; right here's where I come in. I'm going to help you take care of this, but you've got to act white with me. I'm not going to be kicked out of town—not unless you go with me. Is that plain?"
"You're a fool. I understand nothing except that you're trying to blackmail me; and it won't go. Why, you ought to know that the thing you accuse Sam of doing would have landed him and me, too, in the penitentiary. What do you suppose the trustee for the bondholders was doing? What do you imagine the New York investors were thinking about?"
"They were asleep, Will," Jack replied, with a gleam of malignant humor. "And Sam was awful slick. Sam could sell winter underwear in hell. And I guess you could sell anthracite at a profit down there, too. You talk about the family dignity;—by George, I never started with youfellows! Running away with another man's wife is tame business compared with your grafting. And I've got a little more news for you. The clouds are gathering, you might say, in all parts of the horizon." He swept the room with a comprehensive gesture. "It's just one of those queer twists of the screw of fate that brings us all up against Tom Kirkwood. Tom's smart: he always was, and as straight a man as God Almighty ever put on the footstool, and he's prying into Sycamore Traction. I stopped off for a day or two in Indianapolis and got on to this. There was a lawyer and an officer of the Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company out here from New York to talk things over with Kirkwood,—he has some pull down there,—and they've employed him. While Sam lived he watched little things like that; filled up the accountants with champagne and took care of the statements, but I guess you are not quite as smart as Sam. I guess it's about all you can do to take care of the bank examiner when he drops in to shake hands."
William had listened intently, his arms folded, a smile of derision on his face.
"Just how much do you charge for this information?" he demanded coldly.
"I'm not going to charge you; I'm going to help you, Will. It's my duty as a brother to warn you and help you out of trouble. Family feeling is strong in me: I'm not a man to let my own brother go down if I can keep him up. I see it in your eye that—"
William flung round to the door and swung it open.
"Get out of here!"
"Oh, is that the answer? Then, all right!"
He picked up his hat, drew on his coat unhurriedly, walked calmly round the table and lounged out of the bank.