At three minutes to ten the following morning Blake entered the doorway of the mammoth International Industrial Company Building. At one minute to ten he was facing the outermost of the guards who fenced in the private office of H. V. Leslie, capitalist.
"Your business, sir? Mr. Leslie is very busy, sir."
"He told me to call this morning," explained Blake.
"Step in, sir, please."
Blake entered, and found himself in a well-remembered waiting-room, in company with a dozen or more visitors. He swung leisurely across to the second uniformed doorkeeper.
"Business?" demanded this attendant with a brusqueness due perhaps to his closer proximity to the great man.
Blake answered without the flicker of a smile: "I'm a civil engineer, if you want to know."
"Your business here?"
"None that concerns you," rejoined Blake.
His eyes fixed upon the man with a cold steely glint that visibly disconcerted him. But the fellow had been in training for years. He replied promptly, though in a more civil tone: "If you do not wish to state your business to me, sir, you'll have to wait until—"
"No, I won't have to wait until," put in Blake. "Your boss told me to call at ten sharp."
"In that case, of course—Your name, please."
"Blake."
The man slipped inside, closing the door behind him. He was gone perhaps a quarter of a minute. When he reappeared, he held the door half open for Blake.
"Step in, sir," he said. "Mr. Leslie can spare you fifteen minutes."
Blake looked the man up and down coolly. "See here," he replied, "just you trot back and tell Mr. H. V. Leslie I'm much obliged for his favoring me with an appointment, but long as he's so rushed, I'll make him a present of his blessed quarter-hour."
"My land, sir!" gasped the doorkeeper. "I can't take such a message tohim!"
"Suit yourself," said Blake, deliberately drawing a cigar from his vest pocket and biting off the tip.
This time the man was gone a full half-minute. He eyed Blake with respectful curiosity as he swung the door wide open and announced: "Mr. Leslie asks you to come in, sir."
As the door closed softly behind him, Blake stared around the bare little room into which he had been shown. He was looking for the third guardian of the sanctum,—the great man's private secretary. But the room was empty. Without pausing, he crossed to the door in the side wall and walked aggressively into the private office of Genevieve's father.
Mr. Leslie sat at a neat little desk, hurriedly mumbling into the trumpet of a small phonograph.
"Moment!" he flung out sideways, and went on with his mumbling.
Blake swung around one of the heavy leather-seated chairs with a twist of his wrist, and drew out a silver matchsafe. As he took out a match, Mr. Leslie touched a spring that stopped the whirring mechanism of the phonograph, and wheeled around in his swivel desk-chair.
"Dictate on wax," he explained. "Cuts out stenographer. Any clerk can typewrite. No mislaid stenographer's notes; no mistakes. Well, you're nearly on time."
"Sharp at the door, according to your waiting-room clock," said Blake, striking the match on his heel.
"Good—punctuality. First point you score. Now, what do you expect to get out of me?"
Blake held the match to his cigar with deliberate care, blew it out, and flipped it into the wastebasket, with the terse answer: "Justthatmuch."
The other's bushy eyebrows came down over the keen eyes. For a full minute the two stared, the man of business seeking to pierce with his narrowed glance Blake's hard, open gaze. The failure of his attempt perhaps irritated him beyond discretion. At any rate, his silent antagonism burst out in an explosion of irascibility.
"Needn't tell me your game, young man," he rasped. "You think, because you were alone with my daughter, you can force me to pay hush money."
Blake rose to his feet with a look in his eyes before which Mr. Leslie shrank back and cringed.
"Wait! Sit down! sit down! I—I didn't mean that!" he exclaimed.
Blake drew in a deep breath and slowly sat down again. He said nothing, but puffed hard at his cigar.
Mr. Leslie rebounded from panic to renewed irascibility. "H'm! So you're one of that sort. I might have foreseen it."
Blake looked his indifference. "All right. That's the safety-valve. Blow off all the steam you want to through it. Only don't try the other again. You're her father, and that gives you a big vantage. Any one else have said what you did, he wouldn't have had the chance to take it back."
"Do you mean to threaten me?"
"I've smashed men for less."
"You look the part."
"It's not the part of a lickspittle."
"Look here, young man. As the man who happened to save the life of my daughter—"
"Suppose we leave her out of this palaver," suggested Blake.
"Unfortunately, that is impossible. It is solely owing to the obligations under which your service to her have put me that I—"
"That you're willing to let me come in here and listen to your pleasant conversation," broke in Blake ironically. "Well, let me tell you, I'm some busy myself these days. Just now I'm out collecting one of your past-due obligations, I've heard you admit you owe for that first Q. T. Railroad survey."
"There was no legal claim on me. I conceded the point at the request ofMr. Griffith."
"Had to hire him, eh? Best consulting engineer in the city. And he held out for a settlement," rallied Blake.
"You were one of the party?"
"Transitman."
"Then apply to my auditor. He has your pay-check waiting for you."
"How about interest? It's two years over-due."
"I never allow interest on such accounts."
Blake took out his cigar and looked at his antagonist, his jaw out-thrust. "If I had a million, I wouldn't mind spending it to make you pay that interest."
"You could spend twice that, and then not get it," snapped Mr. Leslie. "You'll soon find out I can't be driven, young man. On the other hand—how big a position do you think you could fill?"
"Quien sabe?"
"See here. You've put me under obligations. I'd rather it had been any other man than you—"
"Ditto on you!" rejoined Blake.
The blow struck a shower of flinty sparks from Mr. Leslie's narrowed eyes.
"You'll do well to be more conciliatory, young man," he warned.
"Conciliatory?Bah!"
"Didn't take you for a fool."
"Well, you won't take me in for one," countered Blake.
"You seem determined to hurt your own interests. Unfortunately you've put me in your debt—an obligation I must pay in full."
"Why not get a receiver appointed, and reorganize?" gibed Blake."That's one of the ways you dodge obligations, isn't it?"
Mr. Leslie's wrinkled face quickly turned red, and from red to purple. He thrust a quivering finger against a push-button. Blake grinned exultantly and picked up his hat.
"Don't bother your bouncer," he remarked in a cheerful tone. "I don't need any invitation to leave."
The tall doorkeeper stepped alertly into the room, but turned back on the instant at sight of his master's repellent gesture.
"Mistake," snapped Mr. Leslie, and as the man disappeared, he turned toBlake. "Wait! Don't go yet."
Blake was rising to his feet. He paused, considered, and resumed his seat. Mr. Leslie had regained his normal color and his composure. He put his finger-tips together, and jerked out in his usual incisive tone: "I propose to liquidate this obligation to you without delay. Would you prefer a cash payment?"
"No." Again Blake set his jaw. "You couldn't settle with me for cash, not even if you overdrew your bank account."
"Nonsense!" snapped Mr. Leslie. He studied the young man's resolute face, and asked impatiently, "Well—what?"
"Can't you get it into your head?" rejoined Blake. "I'm not asking for any pay for what I did."
"What, then? If not a money reward—I see. You're perhaps ambitious.You want to make a name in your profession."
"Ever know an engineer that didn't?"
"I see. I'll arrange to give you a position that—"
"Thanks," broke in Blake dryly. "Wait till I ask you for a job."
"What are you going to do?—loaf?"
"That's my business."
Mr. Leslie again studied Blake's face. Though accustomed to read men at a glance, he was baffled by the engineer's inscrutable calm.
"You nearly always win at poker," he stated.
"Used to," confirmed Blake. "Cut it out, though. A gambler is a fool.More fun in a nickel earned than a dollar made at play or speculating."
"So! You're one of these socialist cranks."
Blake laughed outright. "It's the cranks that make the world go 'round! No; I've been too busy boosting for Number One—like you—to let myself think of the other fellow. The trouble with that crazy outfit is they want to set you to working for the people, instead of working the people. No; I've steered clear of them. 'Fraid I might get infected with altruism. Like you, I'm a born anarchist—excuse me!—individualist. What would become of those who have the big interests of the country at heart if they didn't have the big interests in hand?"
Mr. Leslie ignored the sarcasm. "Either you're a fool, or you're playing a deep game. It occurs to me you may have heard that my daughter has money in her own right."
"Three million, she said," assented Blake.
"She told you!"
"Guess she told me more than she seems to have told you."
"About what?"
"Ask her."
Mr. Leslie's eyes narrowed to thin slits. "Her aunt wrote me that she suspected you had the effrontery to—aspire to my daughter's hand. I couldn't believe it possible."
"That so?" said Blake with calm indifference.
Mr. Leslie started as though stung. "It's true, then! You—you!—" He choked with rage.
"I thought that would reach you," commented Blake.
"You rascal! you blackguard!" spluttered Mr. Leslie. "So that's your game? You know she's an heiress! Think you have the whip-handle—bleed me or force her to marry you!—Alone with her after the other man—! You—you scoundrel! you blackguard! I'll—"
"Shut up!" commanded Blake, his voice low-pitched and hoarse, his face white to the lips. For the second time during the interview Mr. Leslie cringed before his look. His pale eyes were like balls of white-hot steel.
Slowly the glare faded from Blake's eyes, and the color returned to his bronzed face. He relaxed his fists.
"God!" he whispered huskily. "God! … But you're her father!"
Something in his tone compelled conviction, despite Mr. Leslie's bitter prejudice. He jerked out reluctantly: "I'm not so sure—perhaps I spoke too—too hastily. But—the indications—"
"Needn't try to apologize," growled Blake.
"I'll not—in words. How about a twenty-five-thousand-dollar position?"
"What?" demanded Blake, astonished.
"That, as a beginning. If you prove yourself the kind of man I think you are,—the kind that can learn to run a railroad system,—I'll push you up the line to a hundred thousand, besides chances to come in on stock deals with George Ashton and myself."
"But if you think I'm a—"
"You're the only man that ever outfaced me in my own office. I'll chance the rest,—though I had your record looked up as soon as your name was cabled to me. I know not only who you are butwhatyou are."
Blake bent forward, frowning. "I've stood about enough of this."
"Wait," said Mr. Leslie. "I'm not going to drag that in. I mention it only that you will understand without argument why my offer is based on the condition that you at once and for all time give over your ridiculous idea of becoming my son-in-law."
"You—mean—that—?"
"That I'd rather see my daughter in her grave than married to you. Is that plain enough? You're a good engineer—when you're not adrunkard."
For a moment Blake sat tense and silent. Then he replied steadily: "I haven't touched a drop of drink since that steamer piled up on that coral reef."
"Three months, at the outside," rejoined Mr. Leslie. "You've been known to go half a year. But always—"
"Yes, always before this try," said Blake. "It's different, though, now, with the backing of two such—ladies!"
"Two?" queried Mr. Leslie sharply.
"One's dead," replied Blake with simple gravity.
"H'm. I—it's possible I've misjudged you in some things. But this question of drink—I'll risk backing you in a business way, if it costs me a million. I owe you that much. But I won't risk my daughter's happiness—supposing you had so much as a shadow of a chance of winning her. No! You saved her life. You shall have no chance whatever to make her miserable. But I'll give you opportunities—I'll put you on the road to making your own millions."
Blake raised his cigar and flecked off the ash. "Thatfor your damned millions!" he swore.
Mr. Leslie stared and muttered to himself: "Might have known it! Man of that kind. Crazy fool!"
"Fool?" repeated Blake contemptuously. "Just because money isyourgod, you needn't think it's everybody else's. You—money—hog! You think I'd sell out my chance of winningher!"
"You have no chance, sir! The thought of such a thing is absurd—ridiculous!"
"Well, then, why don't you laugh? No; you hear me. If I knew I didn't have one chance in a million, I'd tell you to take your offer and—"
"Now, now! make no rash statements. I'm offering you, to begin with, a twenty-five-thousand-dollar position, and your chance to acquire a fortune, if you—"
Blake's smouldering anger flared out in white heat. "Think you can bribe me, do you? Well, you can just take your positions and your dollars, and go clean, plumb to hell!"
"That will do, sir!—that will do!" gasped Mr. Leslie, shocked almost beyond speech.
"No, it won't do, Mr. H. V. Leslie!" retorted Blake. "I'm not one of your employees, to throw a fit when you put on the heavy pedal, and I'm not one of the lickspittles that are alwaysbaa-ingaround the Golden Calf. You've had your say. Now I'll have mine. To begin with, let me tell you, I don't need your positions or your money. Griffith has given me work. I'm working for him, not you. Understand?"
"You are? He's my consulting engineer."
"That cuts no ice. I'm doing some work for him—forhim; understand? It's not for you. He gave me the job—not you. After what you've said to me here, I wouldn't take ahundred-thousand-dollar job from you, not if I was walking around on my uppers. Understand?"
"But—but-"
Blake's anger burst out in volcanic rage. "That's it, straight! I don't want your jobs or your money. They're dirty! You've looked up my record, have you? How about your own? How about the Michamac Bridge? Griffith says the Coville Company has taken it over; but you started it—you called for plans—you advertised a competition. Where are my plans?—you!"
Mr. Leslie shrank back before the enraged engineer.
"Calm yourself, Mr. Blake!" he soothed in a quavering voice. "Calm yourself! This illusion of yours about lost plans—"
"Illusion?" cried Blake. "When I handed them in myself to your secretary—that dude, Ashton."
Mr. Leslie sat up, keenly alert. "To him? You say you handed in a set of bridge plans to my former secretary?"
"He wasn't aformersecretary then."
"To young Ashton, at that time my secretary. Where was it?"
"In there," muttered Blake, jerking his thumb towards the empty anteroom. "I had to butt in to get even that far."
"Why didn't you show your receipt when you applied for your plans?"
"Hadn't a receipt."
"You didn't take a receipt?"
"And after that Q. T. survey, too!" thrust Blake. "I sure did play the fool, didn't I? But I was all up in the air over the way I had worked out that central span, and didn't think of anything but the committee you'd appointed to pass on the competing plans. Those judges were all right. I knew they'd be square."
"Sure you had any plans? Where's your proof?" demanded Mr. Leslie with a shrewdness that won a sarcastic grin from Blake.
"Don't fash yourself," he jeered. "You're safe—legally. Of course my scratch copy of them went down in the steamer. The fact I wrote Griffith about them before the contest wouldn't cut any ice—with your lawyers across the table from any I could afford to hire."
"Griffith knows about your plans?"
"Didn't get a chance to show them to him. All he knows is I wrote him I was drawing them to compete for the bridge—which of course was part of my plan to blackmail you," gibed Blake. He rose, with a look that was almost good-humored. "Well, guess we're through swapping compliments. I won't take up any of your valuable time discussing the weather."
With shrewd eyes blinking uneasily under their shaggy brows, Mr. Leslie watched his visitor cross towards the door. The engineer walked firmly and resolutely, with his head well up, yet without any trace of swagger or bravado.
As he reached for the doorknob, Mr. Leslie bent forward and called in an irritable tone: "Wait! I want to tell you—"
"Excuseme!My time's too valuable," rejoined Blake, and he swung out of the room.
Mr. Leslie sat for a few moments with his forehead creased in intent thought. He roused, to touch a button with an incisive thrust of his finger. To the clerk who came hastening in he ordered tersely: "Phone Griffith—appointment nine-fifteen to-morrow. Important."
About three o'clock of the same day a smart electriccoupewhirled up Lake Shore Drive under a rattling fusillade of sleet from over the lake. At the entrance of the grounds of the Leslie mansion it curved around and shot in under theporte cochere.
A footman in the quiet dark green and black of the Leslie livery sprang out to open thecoupedoor, while the footman with thecoupe, whose livery was not so quiet, swung down to hand out the occupants. Before the servant could offer his services, Dolores Gantry darted out past him and in through the welcome doorway of the side entrance. Her mother followed with stately leisure, regardless of a wind-flung dash of sleet on her sealskins.
Having been relieved of their furs, the callers were shown to the drawing-room. As the footman glided away to inform his mistress of their arrival, Dolores danced across to the door of the rear drawing-room and called in a clear, full-throated, contralto voice: "Ho, Vievie! Vievie! You in here? Hurry up! There's something I do so want to tell you."
Mrs. Gantry paused in the act of seating herself. "Dolores! Why must you shriek out like a magpie? Will you never forget you're a tomboy?"
"I'm not, mamma. I'm simply acting as if I were one. You forget I'm a full-blowndebutante. Vievie has already promised me a ball."
"Behave yourself, if you wish to attend it."
Dolores jumped to a chair and sank into it with an air of elegant languor. "Yes, mamma. This—ah—driving in moist weather is so fatiguing, don't you find it?"
Mrs. Gantry disposed herself upon the comfortable seat that she had selected, and raised her gold lorgnette. "Do not forget that the ball Genevieve has so generously promised you is to be honored by the presence—"
"Of a real live earl and a real hero, with Laffie Ashton thrown in for good—I mean, bad—measure!" cut in Dolores with enthusiasm. "You know, I asked Vievie to 'put him on her list, else he never may be kissed!'"
Again Mrs. Gantry raised her lorgnette to transfix her daughter with her cold stare. "Youasked her to invite Lafayette Ashton? And you know his reputation!"
"Of course. But you mustn't ask for the details, mamma," reproved the girl. "It's best that you should not become aware of such things, my dear. Only, you know, 'boys will be boys,' and we must not lose sight of the fact that poor dear Laffie will be worth twenty millions some day—if his papa doesn't make a will. Besides, he dances divinely. Of course Earl Jimmy's mustache is simply too cute for anything, but, alas! unless Vievie clings to her heroic Tommy—"
"Tommyrot!" sniffed Mrs. Gantry. "The presumption of that low fellow!To think of his following her to America!"
"You should have forewarned the authorities at Ellis Island, and had him excluded as dangerous—to your plans."
"No more of this frivolity! I've confided to you that that man is dangerous to Genevieve's happiness. I'll not permit it. What a fortunate chance that the earl came with him! I shall see to it that Genevieve becomes a countess."
Dolores pulled a mock-tragic face. "Oh, mamma," she implored, "why don't you root for me, instead? I'm sure a coronet would fit me to perfection, and his mustache issocute!"
To judge by Mrs. Gantry's expression, it was fortunate for her daughter that Genevieve came in upon them. Dolores divined this last from the sudden mellowing of her mother's face. She whirled up out of her chair and around, with a cry of joyous escape: "Oh, Vievie! You're just in time to save me!"
"From what, dear?" asked Genevieve, smilingly permitting herself to be crumpled in an impetuous embrace.
"Mamma was just going to run the steam-roller over me, simply because I said Jimmy's mustache is cute. Itiscute, isn't it?"
"'Jimmy'?" inquired Genevieve, moving to a chair beside Mrs. Gantry.
"His honorable earlship, then—since mamma is with us."
"You may leave the room," said her mother.
"I may," repeated the girl. She pirouetted up the room and stopped to look at a painting of a desolate tropical coast.
"It's such a dreadful day out, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve. "And you can't be rested from the trip."
"Quite true, my dear," agreed Mrs. Gantry. "But I had to see you—to talk matters over with you. I did not wish to break in on your enjoyment of those delightful English house parties; and crossing over, you know, I was too wretchedly ill to think of anything. Can I never get accustomed to the sea!"
"It's so unfortunate," condoled Genevieve. "I believe I'm a born sailor."
"You proved it, starting off with that globe-trotting Lady Bayrose."
"Poor Lady Bayrose! To think that she—" The girl pressed her hands to her eyes. "The way that frightful breaker whirled the boat loose and over and over!—and the water swarming with sharks!"
"Do not think of it, my dear! Really, you must not think of it!" urged Mrs. Gantry. "Be thankful it happened before the sailors had time to put you in the same boat. Better still, my dear, do not permit yourself to think of it at all. Put all that dreadful experience out of your mind."
"But you do not understand, Aunt Amice. I fear you never will. Except for that—for poor Lady Bayrose—I've told you, I do not wish to forget it."
"My dear!" protested Mrs. Gantry, "cannot you realize how very improper—? That man! What if he should talk?"
"Is there anything to be concealed?" asked Genevieve, with quiet dignity.
"You know how people misconstrue things," insisted her aunt. "That newspaper notoriety was quite sufficiently—It's most fortunate that Lord Avondale is not affected. I must admit, his attitude towards that man puzzles me."
"I can understand it very well," replied Genevieve, firmly.
"You both insist that the fellow is—is not absolutely unspeakable! I should never have thought it of you, Genevieve, nor of such a thorough gentleman as Lord Avondale—gentleman inoursense of the term,—refined, cultured, andclean. Were he one of the gentry who have reasons for leaving England,—who go West and consort with ruffians—remittance men—But no. Lady Chetwynd assured me he has been presented at Court, and you know the strictness of Queen Mary."
"You admit that Lord Avondale is, shall I say—perfect. Yet—"
"He is irreproachable, my dear, except as regards his extraordinary insistence upon an intimate friendship with that man."
"That is what confirms my good opinion of him, Aunt Amice."
"That!"
"It proves he is himself manly and sincere."
Mrs. Gantry raised a plump hand, palm outward. "Between the two of you—"
"We know Mr. Blake—the real man. You do not."
"I never shall. I will not receive him—never. He is impossible!"
"What! never?—the man who saved me from starvation, fever, wild beasts, from all the horrors of that savage coast?—the intimate friend of the Earl of Avondale?"
"Does he paint, Vievie?" called Dolores. "Is this a picture of yourCrusoe coast?"
"No, dear. I bought that in New York. But it is very like the place where Tom—"
"'Tom'!" reproached Mrs. Gantry. She looked around at her daughter."Dolores, I presumed you left us when I ordered you."
"Oh, no, not 'ordered,' mamma. You said 'may,' not 'must.'"
"Leave the room!"
The girl sauntered down towards the arched opening into the rear drawing-room. As she passed the others, she paused to pat her cousin's soft brown hair.
"I do believe the sun has burnt it a shade lighter, Vievie," she remarked. "What fun it must have been! Whenareyou going to show me that leopard-skin gown?"
"Leave the room this instant!" commanded Mrs. Gantry.
Dolores crossed her hands on her bosom and crept out with an air of martyred innocence. Her mother turned to Genevieve for sympathy. "That girl! I don't know what ever I shall do with her—absolutely irrepressible! These titled Englishmen are so particular—she is your cousin."
Genevieve colored slightly. "You should know Lord Avondale better. If he is at all interested—"
"He is, most decidedly. He dined with us last evening. Laffie Ashton called; so I succeeded in getting the earl away from Dolores. We had a most satisfying littletete-a-tete. I led him into explaining everything."
"Everything?" queried Genevieve.
"Yes, everything, my dear. His aloofness since you reached Aden has been due merely to his high sense of honor,—to an absurd but chivalrous agreement with that fellow to not press his suit until after your arrival home. At Aden he had given the man his word—"
"At Aden?" interrupted Genevieve. "How could that be, when Tom left the ship at Port Mozambique?"
"He didn't. It seems that the fellow was aboard all the time, hiding in the steerage or stoke-hole, or somewhere—no doubt to spy on you and Lord Avondale."
Genevieve averted her head and murmured in a half whisper: "He was aboard all that time, and never came up for a breath of air all those smothering days! I remember Lord James speaking of how hot and vile it was down in the forecastle. This explains why he went forward so much!"
"It explains why he did not book passage with you from Aden—why he did not hasten to you at Lady Chetwynd's—all because of his chivalrous but mistaken sense of loyalty to that low fellow."
"If you please, Aunt Amice," said Genevieve, in a tone as incisive as it was quiet, "you will remember that I esteem Mr. Blake."
Mrs. Gantry stared over her half-raised lorgnette. She had never before known her niece to be other than the very pattern of docility.
"Well!" she remarked, and, after a little pause; "Fortunately, that absurd agreement is now at an end. The earl intimated that he would call on you this afternoon. I am sure, my dear—"
Of what the lady was sure was left to conjecture. The footman appeared in the hall entrance and announced: "Mr. Brice-Ashton."
Ashton came in, effusive and eager. "My dear Miss Genevieve! I—ah, Mrs. Gantry! Didn't expect to meet you here, such a day as this. Most unexpected—ah—pleasure!N'est-ce pas?—No, no! my dear Miss Leslie; keep your seat!"
Genevieve had seemed about to rise, but he quite deftly drew a chair around and sat down close before her. "I simply couldn't wait any longer. I felt I must call to congratulate you over that marvellous escape. It must have been terrible—terrible!"
Genevieve replied with perceptible coldness: "Thank you, Mr. Ashton. I had not expected a call from you."
"'Mr.' Ashton!" he echoed. "Has it come to that?—when we used to make mudpies together! Dolores said that you—"
"Not so fast, Laffie!" called the girl, as she came dancing into the room in her most animated manner. "Don't forget I'm Miss Gantry now."
Ashton continued to address Genevieve, without turning: "I came all the way down from Michamac just to congratulate you—left my bridge!"
"You're too sudden with your congratulations, Laffie," mocked Dolores."Genevieve hasn't yet decided whether it's to be the hero or the earl."
"Dolores," admonished her mother. "I told you to leave the room."
"Yes, and forgot to tell me to stay out. It's no use now, is it? Unless you wish me to drag out Laffie for a littletete-a-tetein the conservatory."
"Sit down, dear," said Genevieve.
Mrs. Gantry turned to Ashton with a sudden unbending from hauteur. "My dear Lafayette, I observed your manner yesterday towards that—towards Mr. Blake. Am I right in surmising that you know something with regard to his past?"
"About Blake?" replied Ashton, his usually wide and ardent eyes shifting their glance uneasily from his questioner to Genevieve and towards the outer door.
"About my friend Mr. Blake," said Genevieve.
"You call him a friend?—a fellow like that!" Ashton rashly exclaimed.
"He has proved himself a disinterested friend,—which I cannot say of all with whom I am acquainted."
"Oh, of course, if you feel that way."
"My other friends will remember that he saved my life."
"If only he had been a gentleman!" sighed Mrs. Gantry.
"Yes, Vievie," added Dolores. "Next time any one goes to save you, shoo him off unless he first offers his card."
"Mr. Blake is what many a seeming gentleman is not," said Genevieve, her levelled glance fixed upon Ashton. "Tom Blake is a man, a strong, courageous man!"
"We quite agree with you," ventured Ashton. "He is a man of the type one so frequently sees among firemen and the police."
Mrs. Gantry intervened with quick tact: "Mr. Blake is quite an eminent civil engineer, we understand. As a fellow engineer, you have met him, I dare say—have had dealings with him."
"I?—with him? No—that is—" Ashton stammered and shifted about uneasily under Genevieve's level gaze. "It was only when I was acting as Mr. Leslie's secretary. Blake handed me the bridge plans that he afterwards claimed were lost. I tell you, I had nothing to do with them—nothing! I merely received them from him. That was all. I went away the very next day—resigned my position. I don't know what became of his plans,—nothing whatever! I tell you, the Michamac Bridge—"
"Why, Lame!" giggled Dolores. "What makes you squirm so? You're twitching all over. I thought you'd had enough of the simple life at Michamac to recover from the effects of that corner in oats. You haven't started another corner already, have you?"
"No, I have—I mean, yes—just a few cocktails at the club—yes, that's it. So bitter cold, this sleet! You'll understand, Mrs. Gantry—perhaps one too much. Haven't had any since I went back to the bridge last time."
"Then up at Michamac you take it straight?" asked Dolores.
Ashton forced a nervous laugh. "Keep it up, Dodie! You'll make a wit yet." He bent towards Genevieve. "You'll pardon me, won't you, Genevieve?"
The girl raised her fine brows ever so slightly. "'Miss Leslie,' if you please."
"Of course—of course! Just another slip—that last cocktail and the sleet. Wet cold always sends it to my head. That about Blake, too—I oughtn't to 've spoken of it after you said he was your friend. It's, of course, your father's affair."
"Then you need say no more about it," said Genevieve with ironical graciousness. He shifted about in his chair, and she caught him deftly. "Must you be going?—really! Good-day."
He rose uncertainly to his feet, his handsome face flushed, and his full red lower lip twitching.
"I—I had not intended—" he began.
"Good-day!" said Mrs. Gantry with significant emphasis.
"So sorry you must rush off so soon, Laffie," mocked Dolores.
Social training has its value. Ashton pulled himself together, bowed gracefully, and started up the room with easy assurance.
As he neared the doorway, the footman appeared and announced with unction: "The Right Honorable, the Earl of Avondale."
Ashton stopped short, and when the Englishman entered, met him with an effusive greeting: "Mon Dieu!Such a fortunate chance, your lordship! So glad to meet you again,—and here, of all places! Don't forget to look me up at my clubs."
"Hearts are trumps, Laffie—not clubs," called Dolores, as Lord James passed him by with a vague nod.
Before the earl had reached them Mrs. Gantry was rising.
Genevieve rose to protest. "You're not going so soon, Aunt Amice?You'll stay for a cup of tea?"
"Not to-day, my dear. Ah, earl! you're just in time to relieve Genevieve from the ennui of a solitary afternoon. I regret so much that we cannot stay with you. Come, Dolores."
Dolores settled back comfortably on her chair. "Go right on, mamma.Don't wait for me. I'll stay and help Vievie entertain Lord Avondale."
"Come—at once."
"Oh, fudge! Well, start on. I'll catch you."
Mrs. Gantry stepped past Lord James. Genevieve met his eager glance, and hastened to overtake her aunt. "Really, won't you stay, Aunt Amice? I'll have tea brought in at once."
"So sorry, my dear," replied Mrs. Gantry, placidly sailing on towards the reception hall.
Dolores simulated a yawn. "O-o-ho! I'msotired. Will nobody help me get up?"
With a boyish twinkle in his gray eyes but profound gravity In his manner, Lord James offered her his hand. She placed her fingers in his palm and sprang up beside him. The others were still moving up the room. She surprised him by meeting his amused gaze with an angry flash of her big black eyes.
"Shame!" she flung at him. "You, his friend, and would take her from him!"
He stared blankly. The girl whirled away from him with a swish of silken skirts and fled past her mother, all her anger lost in wild panic.
"Dolores! Whatever can—" cried Mrs. Gantry. But Dolores had vanished."Really, Genevieve, that madcap girl—! About yourself, my dear.Promise me now, if you cannot say 'yes,' at least you'll not make it afinal 'no.'"
"But, Aunt Amice, unless I feel—"
"Promise me! You must give yourself time to make sure. He will wait. I am certain he will wait until you have found out—"
"I cannot promise anything now," replied Genevieve.
Mrs. Gantry did not press the point. It was the second time during the call that her niece had proved herself less docile than she had expected. As she left the room, Genevieve returned to Lord James without any outward sign of hesitancy. She seated herself and smiled composedly at her caller, who still stood in the daze into which Dolores's outburst had thrown him.
"Won't you sit down?" she invited. "How is Mr. Blake?"
[Illustration: "Shame!" she flung at him. "You, his friend, and would take her from him!"]
With rather an abstracted air, Lord James sank down on the chair opposite her and began fiddling with the cord of his monocle.
"Haven't seen him since yesterday," he replied, "Left him at the office of a Mr. Griffith—engineer—old friend. Gave him work immediately—something big, I take it. Asked Tom to bunk with him."
"It's so good to hear he has work already—and to stay with a friend!You mean, live with him?"
"Yes."
"He—the friend—seems desirable?"
"Decidedly so, I should say. Engineer who first started him on his career, if I remember aright what Tom once told me of his early life."
"Oh, that is such good news! But have you seen him since—since this morning? He had that appointment with papa, you know."
"No, I regret to say I haven't; and I fear I cannot reassure you as to the outcome. You know Tom's way; and your father, I take it, is rather—It would seem that they had a disagreement before Tom went West the last time."
"Yes. He once referred to it. Some misunderstanding with regard to the payment of a railway survey. I asked papa about it last evening, and he told me that it had been made all right—that Tom would get his pay for his share in the survey."
"Little enough, in the circumstances," remarked Lord James.
"That was not all. Papa promised to give him a very good position. He had intended to offer money. But I explained to him that, of course, Tom would not accept money."
"Very true. I doubt if he would have accepted it even had it not been for his hope that—" Lord James paused and stared glumly at his finger-tips. "Bally mess, deuce take it! He and your father at outs, and he and I—"
"You have not quarrelled? You're still friends?" exclaimed Genevieve.
"Quarrelled? No, I assure you, no! Yet am I his friend? Permit me to be candid, Miss Leslie. I'm in a deuce of a quandary. On the trip up to Aden, you'll remember, I told you something of the way he and I had knocked about together."
"Yes. Frankly, it added not a little to my esteem for you that you had learned to value his sterling worth."
"I did not tell you how it started. It was in the Kootenay country—British Columbia, you know. Bunch of sharpers set about to rook me on a frame-up—a bunco game. Tom tipped me off, though I had snubbed him, like the egregious ass I was. I paid no heed; blundered into the trap. Wouldn't have minded losing the thousand pounds they wanted, but they brought a woman into the affair—made it appear as if I were a cad—or worse."
"Surely not that, Lord James. No one could believe that of you."
"You don't know the beastly cleverness of those bunco chaps. They had me in a nasty hole, when Tom stepped in and showed them up. Seems he knew more about the woman and two of the men than they cared to have published. They decamped."
"That was so like Tom!" murmured Genevieve.
"Claimed he did it because of an old grudge against the parties. Had to force my thanks on him. Told you how we'd chummed together since. Deuce take it! why should it have been you on that steamer—with him?"
"Why?" echoed Genevieve, gazing down at her clasped hands, which still showed a trace of tropical tan.
"You know it—it puts me in rather a nasty box," went on Lord James. "Had I not met you before he did, it is possible that I could have avoided—You see my predicament. He and I've been together so much, I can foresee the effect on him of—er—of a great disappointment."
Genevieve gazed up at him with startled eyes. "Lord James, you must explain that; you must be explicit."
"I—I did not intend to so much as mention it," stammered the young Englishman, bitterly chagrined at himself. "It was only—pray, do not ask me, Miss Leslie!"
"You referred, of course, to his drinking," said Genevieve, in a tone as tense as it was quiet. "Do not reproach yourself. When we were cast ashore together, he was—not himself. But when I remember all those weeks that followed—! You cannot imagine how brave and resolute, how truly courageous he was!—and under that outward roughness, how kind and gentle!"
"I too know him. That's what makes it so hard. The thought that I may possibly cause him a disappointment that may result in—" Lord James came to a stop, tugging at his mustache.
Genevieve was again staring at the slender little hands, from which the most expert manicuring had not yet entirely removed all traces of rough usage.
"He told me something of—of what he had to fight," she murmured in a troubled voice. "But I feel that—that if something came into his life—" She blushed, but went on bravely—"something to take him out of what he calls the grind—"
Lord James had instantly averted his gaze from her crimsoning face.
"That's the worst of it!" he burst out. "If only I could feel sure that he—I've seen him fight—Gad! how he has fought—time and again. Yet sooner or later, always the inevitable defeat!"
"I cannot believe it! I cannot!" insisted Genevieve. "With his strength, his courage! It's only been the circumstances; that he has had nobody to—I—I beg your pardon! Of course you—What I mean is somebody who—" She buried her face in her hands, blushing more vividly than before.
The Englishman's face lightened. "Then you've not let my deplorable blunder alter your attitude towards him?"
"Not in the slightest."
He leaned forward. "Then—I can wait no longer! You must know how greatly I—All those days coming up to Aden I could say nothing. Before coming aboard, he had told me why he could not permit you to—to commit yourself irrevocably."
He paused. Genevieve bent over lower. She did not speak.
He went on steadily: "It was then I realized fully his innate fineness. I own it astonished me, well as I thought I knew him. With his brains, his 'grit,' andthat, I'd say he could become anything he wished—were it not for his—for the one weakness."
Genevieve flung up her head, to gaze at him in indignant protest."Weakness! How can you say that? He is so strong—so strong!"
"In all else than that," insisted Lord James. "You must face the hard fact. Gad! this is far worse than I thought it would be. But I knew you before he did, and I've played fair with him. It was not easy to say nothing those days before we reached Aden, or to stay away from you after I reached home. Even he could not have found it so hard. He has all that stubborn power of endurance; while I—"
"You have no cause to reproach yourself. I cannot say how greatly it pleased me that you took him to Ruthby Castle."
"Could you but have been there, too! He and the pater hit it off out of hand. Jolly sensible chap, the pater—quiet, bookish—long head."
"He must be!"
"Not strange about Tom, though. It's odd how his bigness makes itself felt—to those who've any sense of judgment. And yet it's not so odd, when you come to think. My word! if only it were not for his—Forgive me, Miss Genevieve! I've the right to consider what it might mean to you. It gives me the right to speak for myself. He himself insisted that, in justice to you, I should not withdraw."
"Lord James!"
"Pray, do not misunderstand, Miss Genevieve. He knew what it meant to me. But our first thought was for you. He wished you to have the full contrast of your own proper environment, that you might regain your perspective—the point of view natural to one of your position."
"He could think I'd go back to the shams and conventions, after those weeks ofreallife!"
"Sometimes life is a bit too real in the most conventional of surroundings," said his lordship, with a rueful smile. "No. He saw that you had no right to commit yourself then; that you should reconsider matters in the environment in which you belong and for which he is not now fitted—whatever may be the outcome of his efforts to make himself fit."
"He will succeed!"
"He may succeed. I should not have the slightest hesitancy in saying that success would be certain, were it not for that one flaw. It's not to be held against him—an inherited weakness."
"Do you not believe we can overcome heredity?"
"In some cases, I daresay. But with him—You must bear in mind I've seen the futility of his struggle. All his resolution and courage and endurance seem to count for nothing. But it's too painful! Can't we leave him out of this? You are aware that I missed my opportunity when Lady Bayrose changed her plans and rushed you off on the other ship. After that you may imagine how difficult I found it to say nothing, do nothing, coming up to Aden."
"Please, please say no more!" begged Genevieve, her eyes bright with tears of distress. "I regard you too highly. You have my utmost esteem, my respect and friendship, my—you see he has taught me to be sincere—you have my affection. Dear friend, I shall be perfectly candid. I was a silly girl. I had never sensed the realities of life. I had a young girl's covetousness of a coronet—of a title. Yet that was not all. I felt a warm regard for you. Had you spoken before I met him, before I learned to know him—"
"Before you knew him? Then you still—? The contrast of civilization—of your own environment—has made no difference?"
"I do not say that. Yet it is not in the manner you suppose." She looked away, with a piteous attempt to smile. "It's strange how much pain can be caused by the slightest shadow of a doubt."
"Miss Genevieve! I—I shall never be able to forgive myself! For me to have said a word—it was despicable!"
"No, do not say it. Can you think me capable of misunderstanding? Dear friend, I esteem you all the more for what I know it must have cost you. But no; what I spoke of was something that was already in my own mind."
"Ah—then you, too—Miss Genevieve, it's been so good of you. Let me beg that you do not consider this as final."
"But I can promise you nothing. It would not be right to you."
"I ask only that you do not consider this final. You have admitted a shadow of a doubt. With your permission, I propose to wait until you have solved that doubt. You have given me cause to hope that, were it not for him—"
"It is not right for me to give you the slightest hope."
"But I take it. Meantime, no more annoyance to you. We'll be jolly good friends, no more. You take me?"
"I'll ring for tea. You deserve it."
"No objections, I assure you. I'll serve as stopgap till Tom turns up."
Genevieve rose quickly, her color deepening. "He is coming?—this afternoon!"
"I should not have been surprised had I found him here. And now—" He glanced at his watch. "It's already half after four."
"Oh, and papa said he'd be home early to-day!—though his custom is to come barely in time to dress for dinner."
"Hope Tom hit it off with him this morning—but—" Lord James shook his head dubiously—"I fear he was not in a conciliatory mood."
Genevieve rang for tea, and changed the conversation to impersonal topics. A footman brought in a Russian samovar and a service of eggshell china. They sipped their tea and chatted lightly about English acquaintances, but with frequent glances towards the hall entrance. Each was wondering which one would be first to come, Blake or Mr. Leslie.
The conversation had languished to a mere pretext when Blake was announced. The engineer entered slowly, his face red and moist from the fierce drive of the sleet off the lake. He had come afoot.
Genevieve placed a trembling hand on the cover of her samovar, and called to him gayly: "Hurry here at once and have a good hot cup of tea. You must be frozen."
Blake came to them across the waxed floor with an ease and assurance of step in part due to his visit to Ruthby Castle and in part to his walk over the sleet-coated pavements.
"No tea for me, Miss Jenny," he replied with cheerful heartiness."Thanks, just the same. But I'm warm as toast—look it, too, eh?"
"Then take it to cool you off," suggested Lord James. "That's the Russian plan. When you're cold, hot tea to warm you; when you're hot, hot tea to cool you."
"Not when water tastes good to me," replied Blake with a significance that did not escape his friend. "Well, Jimmy, so you beat me to it."
"Waited till after three," said Lord James.
"Thought you'd hang back to give me the start? Went you one better, eh?" replied Blake. He stared fixedly into the handsome high-bred face of his friend and then at Genevieve's down-bent head. "Well? What's the good word? Is it—congratulations?"
"Not this time, old man," answered the Englishman lightly. He rose."Take my seat. Must be going."
Blake's eyes glowed. "You're the gamest ever, Jimmy boy."
"Don't crow till you're out of the woods," laughed his friend. "Can't wish you success, y'know. But it's to continue the same between us as it has been, if you're willing."
"That's like you, Jimmy!"
"To be sure. But I really must be going. Good-day, Miss Genevieve."
The girl looked up without attempting to conceal her affection and sympathy for him.
"Dear friend," she said, "before you go, I wish to tell you how highlyI value and appreciate—"
"No more, no more, I beg of you," he protested, with genial insistence."Tom, I'll be dropping in on you at your office."
He bowed to Genevieve, and still cloaking his hurt with a cheerful smile, started to leave them. At the same moment Mr. Leslie came hurrying into the room. The sight of Lord James brought him to a stand.
"H'm!" he coughed. "So it's you, Lord Avondale? Hodges said—" His keen eyes glanced past the Englishman to the big form across the corner of the table from Genevieve. "What! Right, was he?—Genevieve."
"Yes, papa?" replied the girl, looking at Blake with a startled gaze. She was very pale, but her delicately curved lips straightened with quiet determination. She did not rise.
"Er—glad to meet you again so soon, Mr. Leslie," said Lord James, deftly placing himself so that the other could not avoid his proffered hand without marked discourtesy. Mr. Leslie held out his flaccid fingers. They were caught fast and retained during a cordial and prolonged handshake.
"When we first met," went on his lordship suavely, "time was lacking for me to congratulate you on the fact that your daughter came through her terrible experience so well. She has assured me that she feels all the better for it. Only one, like myself, accustomed to knocking about the tropics, can fully realize the extraordinary resourcefulness and courage of the man who had the good fortune to bring her through it all safely and, as she says, bettered."
"Yes, yes, we all know that, and admit it," replied the captive, attempting to free his hand.
Lord James gave it a final wring. "To be sure! You, of all men, will bear in mind what he accomplished. Yet I must insist that my own appreciation is no less keen. It is the greatest satisfaction to me that I am privileged to call Thomas Blake my friend."
"Your friend has put me under obligations," answered Mr. Leslie. "I have acknowledged to him that I owe him a heavy debt for what he has done. I stand ready to pay him for his services, whenever he is ready to accept payment."
"Ah, indeed," murmured Lord James. "'Pon my word, now, that's what I call deuced generous."
"No; that's not the question at all. It's merely a matter of a business settlement for services rendered," replied Mr. Leslie.
"Yet one does not—er—value gratitude in pounds and dollars, y' know."
"No, no, of course you do not, papa!" exclaimed Genevieve. "Please remember—please try to consider—"
She would better have remained silent. Her evident concern alarmed her father to the point of exasperation.
"I am considering how this friend of Lord Avondale's bore himself towards me, in my office, this morning," he interrupted her. He turned again to Lord James. "I should not need to tell you, sir, that the manner of expressing gratitude depends altogether on the circumstances. We are now, however, considering another matter. You were about to leave—You will always be welcome to my house, Lord Avondale, and so will be your friends,when they come and go with you."
"Father!" protested Genevieve, rising to face him.
"My mistake, Miss Jenny," said Blake, coolly drawing himself up beside her. "I thought it wasyourhouse."
He swung about to Mr. Leslie, and said, with unexpected mildness: "Don't worry; I'm going. We don't want to fuss here, do we?—to make it any harder for her. But first, there's one thing. You're her father—I want to say I'm sorry I cut loose this morning."
"What! you apologize?"
"As to what I said about my bridge plans—yes. If you had left out about—If you hadn't rubbed it in so hard about me and—You know what I mean. It made me red-hot. I couldn't help cutting loose. But, just the same, I oughtn't to've said that about the plans, because—well, because, you see, I don't believe it."
"You don't? Then why—?"
"I did believe it before. I believed it this morning, when I was mad. But I've had time to cool off and think it over. Queer thing—all the evidence and probabilities are there, just the same; but somehow I can't believe it of you any longer—simply can't. You're her father."
"H'm—this puts a different face on the matter," admitted Mr. Leslie. "I begin to think that I may have been rather too hasty. Had you been more conciliatory, less—h'm—positive, I'm inclined to believe that we—"
"I don't care whatyoubelieve," was Blake's brusque rejoinder. "I'm not trying to curry favor with you. Understand? Come on, Jimmy."
But Genevieve was at his elbow, between him and the door.
"You are not going now, Tom," she said.
"Genevieve," reproved her father. "This is most unlike you."
"Unlike my former frivolous, pampered self!" cried the girl. "I'm no longer a silly debutante, papa. I've lived the grim hard realities of life—there on that dreadful coast—with him. I'm a woman."
"You child! You're not even twenty-one."
"I am old—older than the centuries, papa—old enough to know my own mind." She turned to Blake. "You were right, Tom. This is my home—legally mine. You are welcome to stay."
"Mr. Leslie!" interposed Lord James, before her father could reply. "One moment, if you please. I have told you that Mr. Blake and I are friends. More than that, we are intimate friends—chums. I wish to impress on you the very high esteem in which I hold him, the more than admiration—"
"Chuck it, Jimmy," put in Blake.
Lord James concluded in a tone of polite frigidity. "And since you place conditions on his welcome to your house, permit me to remark that I prefer his acquaintance to yours." He bowed with utmost formality.
"H'm!" rasped Mr. Leslie. "You should understand, sir. Had you not interrupted me—" He abruptly faced Blake. "You, at least, will understand my position—that I have some reason—It is not that I wish to appear discourteous, even after this morning. You've apologized; I cannot ask you to go—I do not ask you to go. Yet—"
"If you please, papa," said Genevieve with entrancing sweetness.
"Well?"
"Isn't it time for you to dress?"
"No—came home early," replied Mr. Leslie, jerking out his watch. He searched his daughter's face with an apprehensive glance, and again addressed Blake. "Too early. There's time for a run out to George Ashton's. Want to see him on a matter of business. Valuable acquaintance for you to make. Jump into the runabout with me, and I'll introduce you to him."
"Thanks," said Blake dryly. "Not to-day."
"Mr. Blake has just come, papa," said Genevieve. "You would not deprive us of the pleasure of a little visit."
"H'm. By cutting it close, I can wait a few minutes."
"You need not trouble to wait, papa. You can introduce him to Mr.Ashton some other time."
"May I offer myself as a substitute?" put in Lord James. "Mrs. Gantry has told me so much about the elder Mr. Ashton. Quite curious to meet him."
Blandly taking Mr. Leslie's assent as a matter of course, he started toward the door. "Good-day, Miss Leslie. Ah—do we go out this way? Can't tell you how I value the opportunity. Very good of you, very!"
"Wait," said Mr. Leslie. "Genevieve, haven't you an engagement out, this afternoon?"
"If I had a dozen, papa, I should not deprive Mr. Blake of his call."
"Mr. Blake is welcome to his call. But—since you force me to say it—I must expressly tell you, it is my wish that you should not see him alone."
"I'm very sorry, papa, that you should forbid me," said Genevieve with a quiet tensity that should have forewarned him.
"Sorry?"
"Yes, papa, because, if you insist, I shall have to disobey you."
"You will?"
He stared at her, astounded, and she sustained his gaze with a steadiness that he perceived could not be shaken.
Lord James again interposed. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie, if I may seem to interfere. But as he is my friend, I, too, request you—"
"You?" exclaimed Mr. Leslie, with fresh astonishment. "You also side with him?—when my sister-in-law tells me—"
"That is all by-the-bye, I assure you, sir. The least I can do for the man who saved her life is to play fair. Permit me to say that you can do no less."
Mr. Leslie looked at Genevieve with a troubled frown.
"At least, my dear, I hope you'll remember who you are," he said.
She made no reply, but stood white-faced and resolute until he went from the room. Lord James followed close after him.
Blake and Genevieve were left alone.