Blake stood as motionless as a carved figure, his eyes glowing upon the girl, blue and radiant with tenderness and compassion and profound love.
The clang of a heavy door told her that her father had left the house. On the instant all her firmness left her. She hid her face in her hands and sank into the nearest chair, quivering and weeping, in silent anguish.
Blake came near and stood over her. He spoke to her in a voice that was deep and low and very soft: "There, there, little girl, don't you mind! Just cry it out. It'll do you good. You know I understand. Have a good cry!"
The sympathetic urging to give way freely to her weeping almost immediately soothed her grief and checked the flow of tears. She rose uncertainly, dabbing at her eyes.
"I—I couldn't help it, Tom. It's the fi-first time papa's ever been so cross with me!"
"My fault, I guess. Rubbed his fur the wrong way this morning pretty hard. But don't you fret, girlie. It'll be all right. Only we mustn't blame him. Think of what it means to him. You're all he has, and if he thinks you're—if he thinks he's going to lose you—"
"But it was so cruel!—so unjust!—the way he treated you!"
"Oh, that's all right, little woman. I don't mind that. We'll all forget it by to-morrow. He didn't mean half he said. It was just the thought that I—that somebody might take you away from him. Jenny!" His eyes glowed upon her blue as sapphires. "You're home now."
He held his arms open for her to come to him. She swayed forward as if to give herself into the clasp of those strong arms, but instantly checked the movement and shrank back a little way.
"Wait, Tom," she murmured hesitatingly. "We must first—"
"Wait longer, Jenny?" he exclaimed, his deep voice vibrant with the intensity of his feeling. "No, I must say it! I've waited all these weeks—good Lord!—when maybe you've thought it was because I didn't want to—to do as you asked!"
"It's not that, Tom, truly it's not that. I was hurt and—shamed. But even then I divined why you had done it and realized the nobility of your motive."
"Nobility? That's a good joke! You know I was only trying to do the square thing. Any man would have done the same."
"Anymanwould. I'm not so certain as to some who call themselves gentlemen."
"There're some who're real gentlemen—worse luck to me—Jimmy, for one. I can never catch up with him in that line, girlie, but I can make a stagger at it."
"You can become anything you will, Tom," she said with calm conviction.
"Maybe," he replied. "But, Jenny, I can't wait for that. Wish I could. I'm still only—what you know. Same time, you're back home now, and you've been visiting with your titled friends. Also you've seen how your father looks at it, and how—"
"What does all that amount to—even papa's anger? If only that were all!"
"Jenny! then you still—?" His voice quivered with passion. "My little girl!—how I love you! God I how I love you! I never thought much of girls, but I loved you the first time I ever set eyes on you, there in the Transvaal. That's why I threw up the management of the mine. I knew who your father was; I knew I hadn't a ghost of a show. But I followed you to Cape Town—couldn't help it!"
"You—you old silly!" she murmured, half frightened by the greatness of his passion. "You should have known I was only a shallow society girl!"
"Shallow?—you? You're deep as blue water!"
"The ocean is fickle."
"You're not; you're true! You'velived!I've seen you face with a smile what many a man would have run from."
"Because with me was one who would have died sooner than that harm should come to me! Those weeks, those wonderful weeks that we lived, so close to primitive, savage Nature—bloody fanged Nature!—those weeks that I stood by your side and saw her paint for us her beautiful, terrible pictures of Life, pictures whose blue was the storm-wave and the sky veiled with fever-haze, whose white was the roaring surf and the glare of thunderbolts, whose red was fire and blood! And you saved me from all—all! I had never even dreamt that a man could be so courageous, so enduring, so strong!"
His face clouded, and he gave back before her radiant look.
"Strong?" he muttered. "That's the question. Am I?"
"Of course you are! I'm sure you are. Youmustbe. It was that which compelled my—which made me—" She paused, and a swift blush swept over her face from forehead to throat—"made me propose to you, there on the cliff, when the steamer came."
"That a lady should have loved me like that!" he murmured. "I still can't believe it was true! My little girl, it's not possible—not possible!"
"You say 'loved,'" she whispered. Her eyelids fluttered and drooped before his ardent gaze; her scarlet face bent downward; she held out her hands to him in timid surrender.
He caught them between his big palms, but not to draw her to him. A jagged mark on her round wrist caught his eye. It was the scar of a vicious thorn. The last time he had seen it was on the cliff top,—that other time when she put out her arms to him. He bent over and kissed the red scar.
"Jenny," he replied in bitter self-reproach, "here's another time I've proved I'm not in your class—not a gentleman. You've raised a point—the real point. Am I what you think me? You think I'm at least a man. Am I?"
She looked up at him, her face suddenly gone white again. "Tom! You don't mean—?"
"About my being strong. All that you've seen so far are my leading suits. There's that other to be reckoned with yet. I told your father I hadn't touched a drop since the wreck. But you know how it was before."
"Yes, dear, but thatwasbefore!"
"I know. Things are different now. I've something at stake that'll help me fight. You can't guess, though, how that craving—Lucky I'll have Jimmy, as well, to back me up. He's great when it comes to jollying a fellow over the bumps. He'll help."
"It's little enough, after all you've done for him! He told me."
"Just like him. But let's not get sidetracked. What I wanted to make clear is that I'm not so everlastingly strong as you seem to think."
"Tom, you'll not give way! You'll fight!"
"Yes, I'll fight," he responded soberly.
"And you'll win!"
"I hope so, girlie. I've fought it before, and it has downed me, time and again. But now it's different—unless you've found you were mistaken. But if you still feel as when you—as you did there on the cliff that morning—Good God! howcouldI lose out, with you backing me up?"
She looked at him with a quick recurrence of doubt. "You ask help of me?"
"If you care enough, Jenny. It's not going to be a joke. I've tried before, and gone under so many times that some people would say I've no show left. But let me tell you, girlie, I'm going to fight this time for all I'm worth. I'm going to break this curse if I can. Itisa curse, you'll remember. I told you about my mother."
"You should not think of that. What does heredity count as against environment!"
"Environment?—heredity? By all accounts, my father was the man you've thought me, and a lot more—railroad engineer; nerviest man ever ran an engine out of Chicago on the Pennsylvania Line; American stock from way back—Scotch-Irish; sober as a church, steady, strong as a bull. Never an accident all the years he pulled the fast express till the one that smashed him. Could have jumped and saved himself—stayed by his throttle, and saved the train. They brought him home—what was left of him. Papers headlined him; you know how they do it. That was my father."
"Oh, Tom! and with such a father!"
"Wait a minute. You spoke of heredity and environment. I'm giving you all sides, except anything more about my mother. Her father was a cranky inventor … Well, inside six months we were living in a tenement. I was a little shaver of six. The younger of my sisters was a baby. Talk about environment! Wasn't many years before I was known as the toughest kid in Rat Alley."
"Don't dwell on that, Tom. Don't even speak of it," begged Genevieve.
He shook his head. "I want you to know just what I've been. It's your right to know. I wasn't one of the nasty kind and I wasn't a sneak. But I was the leader of my gang. Maybe you know what that means. Of course the police got it in for me. Finally they made it so hot I had to get out of Chicago. I took to the road—became a bum."
"Not that!—surely not that!"
"Well, no, only a kid hobo. But I'd have slid on down if I hadn't dropped into a camp of surveyors who were heading off into the mountains and had need of another man. Griffith, the engineer in charge, talked me into joining the party as axman. I took a fancy to him. He proved himself the first real friend I'd ever had—or was to have till I met Jimmy Scarbridge."
"A man's worth is measured by the friends he makes," she observed.
"Not always. Well, Griffith got me interested. I joined the party.Whew!—seven months in the mountains, and not a saloon within fifty miles any of the time. But I stuck it out. Nobody ever called me a quitter."
"And now, Tom, you'll not quit! You'll win!"
"I'll try—for you, girlie! You can't guess how that braces me—the thought that it's for you! You see, I'm beginning to count on things now. I'm not even afraid of your money now. Good old Grif—Griffith, you know—has given me a shy at a peach of a proposition—toughest problem I was ever up against. It's a big irrigation dam that has feazed half a dozen good engineers."
"But you'll solve the problem! You can do anything!"
"I'm not so sure, Jenny. I've only begun to dig into the field books. Even if I do make a go of it in the end, chances are I'll have to work like—like blazes to get there. But that'll help me on this other fight—help choke down the craving when it comes. A whole lot turns on that dam. If I make good on it, I'm made myself. Tack up my ad. as consulting engineer, and I'll have all the work I want. Won't be ashamed to look your three millions in the face."
"My money! Can you still believe that counts with me? Money! It is what we are ourselves that counts. If you acquired all the money in the world, yes, and all the fame, but failed to master yourself, you'd not be the man I thought you—the man whom I—whom I said I loved."
"Jenny! Then it's gone—you no longer care?"
"You have no right to ask anything of me until you've—"
"I'm not, Jenny! Don't think it for a moment. I'm not asking anything now. I wanted to wait. It's only that I want you to know how I love you. I wouldn't dream of asking you to—to marry me now—no, not till I've won out, made good. Understand? All I want is for you to wait for me till I've made my name as an A-1 engineer and until I've downed that cursed craving for drink."
"You will, Tom—youmust!"
"With you to back me, little woman! Yes, I guess I can make it this time, with you waiting for me!"
Genevieve met his smile and enthused gaze with a look of firm decision.Her doubt and hesitancy had at last crystallized into a set purpose.She replied in a tone that rang with a hardness new to him: "No. Itmust be more than that."
"More?" he asked, surprised.
"More, much more. That morning, after I so shamelessly forced you to listen to me, nothing could have altered my purpose had you come aboard the steamer with me."
"But I couldn't then. 'T wouldn't have been fair to you."
"Yet it might have been wise. Who knows? At the least, the question would have been settled 'for better or for worse.' It is easier to face the trouble which one cannot escape than deliberately to make choice of entering into the state that may or may not bring about the dreaded misfortune. Had you married me then, Tom, I would surely have been happy for a time. But now—you have made me believe that you were right."
Blake drew back from her, his head downbent in sudden despondency. "So you've found out you don't feel the same?"
Her eyes dimmed with tears of compassion for him, but her voice was as firm as before. "I loved Tom Blake because he was so manly, so strong! I still love that Tom Blake. You are not sure that you are strong."
"But if I knew I had your love back of me, Jenny!"
"That's it—you wish to lean on me! It's weak; it's not like you. You won my love by your courage, your resolution, your strength! All my love for you is based on your strength. If that fails—if you prove weak—how am I to tell whether my love will endure?"
"I'll win out. I know I can win out if I have you to fight for."
"If you have me toleanon! No; you must prove yourself stronger than that. I had no doubts then. I urged you to marry me—flung myself at you. But now, after what I've been forced to realize since then—"
She stopped short, leaving him to infer the rest. He took it at the worst. He replied despairingly yet without a trace of bitterness: "Yes, you'd better take Jimmy. He's your kind."
"Tom! How can you? I've a great esteem for Lord James, I like him very much, but—"
"He's the right sort. You could count on being happy with him," stated Blake, in seeming resignation. She looked at him, puzzled and hurt by his calmness. The look fired him to a passionate outburst. "Don't you think it, though! He's not going to have you! I can't give you up! I'm going to win you. My God! I love you so much I'd try to win you—I'd have to win you, even if I thought you'd be unhappy!"
Her voice softened with responsive tenderness. "Oh, Tom, if only I knew we would have—would have and keep that great love that covers all things! I'd rather be miserable with you than happy without you!"
"Jenny! you do love me!" he cried, advancing with outstretched arms.
She drew back from him. "Not now—not now, Tom!"
He smiled, only slightly dashed. "Not now, but when I've made good.You'll wait for me! I can count on that!"
"No," she answered with utmost firmness.
"Jenny!"
"I'll make no promise—not even a conditional one. You must make this fight without leaning on any one. Imustknow whether you are strong, whether you are the real Tom Blake I love."
"But I'm not asking anything—only in case I make good."
"No; I'll not bind myself in any way. I'll not promise to marry you even if you should win. It was you who made me wait, and now I shall make sure. Unless I feel certain that we would be bound together for all time by the deepest, truest love, I know it would be a mistake. If I were certain, right now, that you lack the strength to conquer yourself for the sake of your own manhood, I would accept Lord James."
Whether or not the girl was capable of such an act, there could be no doubt that she meant what she said, and her tone carried conviction to Blake. He was silent for a long moment. When he replied, it was in a voice dull and heavy with despondency. "You don't realize what you're putting me up against."
"I realize that you must clear away all my doubt of your strength," she rejoined, with no lessening of her firmness. "You were strong there on that savage coast, in the primitive. But you must prove yourself strong enough to riseoutof the primitive—to rise to your true, your higher self."
He bent as if he were being crushed under a ponderous weight. His voice dulled to a half articulate murmur. "You—won't—help—me?"
"I cannot—I dare not!" she insisted almost fiercely. "If I did I should doubt. This dreadful fear! Youmustprove you're strong! Youmustmaster yourself for the sake of your own manhood!"
At last he was forced to realize that it was necessity, not desire, that impelled her to thrust him from her. He must fight his hard battle alone—he must fight without even the thought that he had her sympathy.
He should have divined that she would be secretly hoping, perhaps praying for him, striving for him in spirit with all the might of her true love. But by her insistence she had at last compelled him to doubt her love.
He thought of the many times that he had gone down in disgraceful defeat, and black despair fell upon him. His broad shoulders stooped yet more.
"What's the use?" he muttered thickly.
But the question itself served as the goad to quicken all his immense reserve of endurance. He looked up at Genevieve, heavy-eyed but grim with determination.
"You don't know what you've put me up against," he said. "But I'll not lay down yet. Nobody ever called me a quitter. You've a right to ask me to make good. I'll make a stagger at it. Good-bye!"
He turned from her and walked up the room with the steady deliberation of one who bears a heavy burden.
It was almost more than she could endure. She started to dart after him, and her lips parted to utter an entreaty for him to come back to her. But her spirit had been tempered in that fierce struggle for life on the savage coast of Mozambique.
She checked herself, and waited until, without a backward glance, he had passed out through the curtained doorway. Then, and not until then, she sank down in her chair and gave way to the anguish of her love and doubt and dread.
A quarter after nine the next morning found Griffith at the door of Mr. Leslie's sanctum. He stuffed his gauntlet gloves into a pocket of his old fur coat, and entered the office, his worn, dark eyes vague with habitual abstraction.
Mr. Leslie was in the midst of his phonographic dictation. He abruptly stopped the machine and whirled about in his swivel-chair to face the engineer.
"Sit down," he said. "How's the Zariba Dam?"
"No progress," answered Griffith with terse precision. He sat down with an air of complete absorption in the act, drew out an old knife and his pipe, and observed: "You didn't send for me for that."
"How's the bridge?"
"Same," croaked the engineer, beginning to scrape out the bowl of his pipe with the one unbroken blade of his knife.
"That young fool still running around town?"
"Can't say. It'd be a good thing to have him do it all the time if work was going on. Had a letter from McGraw, that man I put in as general foreman. He says everything is frozen up tight; may keep so for two weeks or more."
"You've laid off most the force?"
"No, not even the Slovaks."
Mr. Leslie frowned. "Two or three weeks at full pay, and no work?That's an item."
"Hard enough to hold together a competent force on such winter work as that," rejoined Griffith. "Almost impossible with your kid-glove Resident Engineer. I've said nothing all this time; but he's made some of my best men quit—bridge workers that've stayed by me for years. Said they couldn't stand for his damned swell-headedness, not even to oblige me."
"Well, well, I leave it to you. Do the best you can. It's a bad bargain, but we've got to go through with it. Only time the young fool ever showed a glimmer of sense was when he had his father's lawyers drew his contract with me. My lawyers can't find a flaw in it."
"Not even diamond cut diamond, eh?" cackled Griffith. He ceased scraping at his pipe to peer inquisitively into the bowl. "What I've never been able to figure out is how he happened to solve the problem of that central span. Don't think you've ever realized what a wonderful piece of work that was. It's something new. Must have been a happy accident—must have come to him in what I'd call a flash of intuition or genius. He sure hadn't it in him to work such a thing out in cold blood."
"Genius?—pah!" scoffed Mr. Leslie.
"Hey?" queried Griffith, glancing up sharply. "What else, then?"
"I've recently been given reason to suspect—" began Mr. Leslie. He paused, hesitated, and refrained. "But we'll talk of that later. First, my reason for sending for you. I understand that you know this man Blake, who, unfortunately, was the person that saved my daughter."
Griffith replied with rather more than his usual dryness. "If I've got a correct estimate of what Miss Leslie had to be pulled through, it's lucky that Tom Blake was the man."
"You've a higher opinion of him than I have."
"We've worked together."
"He's in your office now," snapped Mr. Leslie.
"Yes, and he stays there long as he wants," rejoined Griffith in a quiet matter-of-fact tone. "It's your privilege to hire another consulting engineer."
Mr. Leslie brought his shaggy eyebrows together in a perplexed frown. "Must say, I can't understand how the fellow makes such friends. Your case is hardly less puzzling than that of the Earl of Avondale."
"Hey? Oh, you mean young Scarbridge. He seems to be one of the right sort—even if heisthe son of a duke. But if Tommy hadn't introduced him as a friend—"
"We're talking about Blake," interrupted Mr. Leslie. "I want your help."
"Well?" asked Griffith warily.
"He has put me under obligations, and refuses to accept any reward from me. It's intolerable!"
"Won't accept anything, eh? Well, if he says he won't, he won't. No use butting your head against a concrete wall."
"He's a fool!"
"I'd hardly agree as to that. He doesn't always do as people expect him to. Same time, he usually has a reason."
"But for him to refuse to take either cash or a position!"
"I notice, though, he drew his pay-check for the Q. T. survey. No;Tommy isn't altogether a fool—not altogether."
"Twenty-five-thousand-dollar position!" rasped Mr. Leslie.
"Hey?"
"Offered him that, and—"
"You offered him—?" echoed Griffith, his lean, creased face almost grotesque with astonishment.
"Think I don't value my daughter's life?" snapped Mr. Leslie. "I was ready to do that and far more for him. He refused—not only refused but insulted me."
Griffith peered intently into the angry face of his employer. "Insulted you, eh? Guess you prodded him up first."
"I admit I had rather misjudged him in some respects."
"So you gave him the gaff, eh?—and got it back harder!" cackledGriffith.
"He shall be compelled to accept what I owe him, indirectly, if not directly. You have given him work?"
"Yes."
"You've, of course, told him that I'm the Coville Construction Company."
"Not yet."
"What! You're certain of that?"
Griffith nodded. "He sailed into me, first thing, for taking work from you. To ease him off, I said the Coville Company had taken over the bridge from you. The matter hasn't happened to come up again since."
"You're certain he doesn't know I'm interested in the company?"
"Not unless somebody else has told him."
"Then—let's see— We'll appoint him Assistant Resident Engineer on the bridge."
"He'll not take it under young Ashton."
"Not if his salary is put at twenty-five thousand?"
"As Assistant Engineer?" said Griffith, incredulous.
"You'll be too busy with my other projects to keep up these visits to Michamac. Besides, you said the bridge is coming to the crucial point of construction."
"That central span," confirmed Griffith.
"If you consider Blake sufficiently reliable, you can give him detailed instructions and send him up to take charge."
"How about Ashton's contract?"
"He'll be satisfied with the glory. Reports will continue to name him as Resident Engineer. If he won't listen to reason, I'll ask his father to drop him a line. The young fool has had his allowance cut twice already. He'd consider his pay as engineer a bare pittance."
"Heir to the Ashton millions, eh?" croaked Griffith.
"If I know George Ashton, he has a good safe will drawn, providing that his fortune is to be held in trust. That fool boy won't have any chance to squander more than his allowance,—and he won't keep me now from paying off this obligation to Blake."
"Perhaps not. I'm not so sure, though, that Tom will—One thing's certain. He won't go up to Michamac right away."
"He won't? Why not? It's just the time for him to get the run of things, now while there's no work going on."
"He'd catch on quick enough. It's not that. Fact is, he's got hold of something a lot bigger, and I know he'll not quit till he has either won out or it has downed him. Never knew of but one thing that ever downed him."
Mr. Leslie glared at the engineer, his face reddening with rage.
"Something bigger!" he repeated. "So the fellow has bragged about it!"
Griffith stared back, perplexed by the other's sudden heat. "Guess we've got our wires crossed," he said. "I told him, of course. He didn't know anything about it."
"What you talking about?" demanded Mr. Leslie, puzzled in turn.
"The Zariba Dam."
"That!" exclaimed Mr. Leslie, and his face cleared. "H'm,—what about the dam?"
"I had about thrown it up. I'm giving Tom a go at it."
Mr. Leslie's eyebrows bristled in high curves.
"What! wasting time with a man like that? Ifyou'vegiven it up, we'll try England or Europe."
"No use. Plenty of good men over there. They can give us pointers on some things. But if they've ever done anything just like this Zariba Dam, they've kept it out of print."
"But an unknown second-rate engineer!"
"That's what's said of every first-rater till he gets his chance."
"You're serious?"
"I don't guarantee he can do it. I do say, I won't be any too surprised if he pulls it off. It's a thing that calls for invention. He'll swear he hasn't an ounce of it in him—says he just happens to blunder on things, or applies what he has picked up. All gas! He once showed me some musty old drawings that made it look like one of his grandfathers ought to be credited with the basic inventions of a dozen machines that to-day are making the owners of the patent-rights rich. Guess some of that grandfather's bump can be located on Tom's head."
"Inventor—h'm—inventor!" muttered Mr. Leslie half to himself. "That puts rather a different face on that bridge matter."
"As how?" casually asked Griffith, beginning to scrape afresh at his pipe-bowl.
Mr. Leslie considered, and replied with another question: "At the time of the competition in plans for the bridge, did you know that Blake was to be a contestant?"
"He writes letters about as often as a hen gets a tooth pulled. But I got a letter the time you mention,—a dozen lines or so, with another added, saying that he was in for a whirl at the Michamac cantilever."
"You've shown him Ashton's bridge plans?"
"Not yet. He's been too busy on the Zariba field books."
"You've seen his own plans for the bridge?"
"No. They were lost."
"The originals, I mean—his preliminary copy. He must have kept something."
"Yes. But I guess they're pretty wet by now," replied Griffith, his face crackling with dry humor. "They're aboard that steamer, down on the African coast. If you want to see them, you might finance a wrecking expedition. But Tom says she went down mast-under, and there are plenty of sharks nosing along the coral reef."
Mr. Leslie winced at the wordsharks, and reluctantly admitted: "I've had a long talk with my daughter. He played the part of a man. I acknowledge that I've held a strong prejudice against him. It seems, however, that in part I've been mistaken."
"Now you're talking, Mr. Leslie!"
"Only in part, I say—about his lost bridge plans. I had thought he was trying to blackmail me."
"More apt to be a black eye, if you let him know you thought that," wasGriffith's dry comment.
"He came near to resorting to violence. As I look at it now, I can't say I blame him. Those bridge plans, though—Knowing this about his inventiveness, has it not occurred to you that his plans may not have been lost, after all?"
"Look here, Mr. Leslie," said Griffith, rising with the angularity of a jumping-jack, "we've rubbed along pretty smooth since we got together last year; but Tom Blake is my friend."
"Sit down!sitdown!" insisted Mr. Leslie. "You ought to see by this time that I'm trying to prove myself anything but an enemy to him."
Griffith sat down and began mechanically to load his pipe with the formidable Durham. Mr. Leslie put the tips of his fingers together, coughed, and went on in a lowered tone. "Those plans disappeared. His charge was preposterous, ridiculous—as against me. Yet if the plans were not lost, what became of them? He told me yesterday that he himself handed them to the person who was at that time acting as my secretary. You catch the point?"
"Um-m," grunted Griffith, his face as emotionless as a piece of crackled wood.
"Young Ashton was my secretary. He resigned the next day. Said he had been secretly working on plans for the Michamac cantilever; thought he had solved the problem of the central span; might go ahead and put in his plans if none of the competitors were awarded the bridge. Within a month he did put in plans."
"Well?" queried Griffith.
"Don't you make the connection?" demanded Mr. Leslie. "Blake handed his plans to Ashton, and took no receipt. The plans disappeared. Ashton leaves; comes back in a month with plans that he hasn't the skill to apply in the construction of the bridge—plans include an entirely new modification of bridge trusses—stroke of inventive genius, you called it."
Griffith's lean jaw dropped. "You—you don't mean to say he—the son of George Ashton—that he could—God A'mighty, he's heir to twenty millions!"
"You don't believe it? Suppose you knew he was about to be cut off without a cent? George had stood about all he could from the young fool. Those bridge plans came in just in time to prevent the drawing of a new will."
The hand in which Griffith held his pipe shook as if he had been seized with a fever chill, but his voice was dry and emotionless. "That accounts for those queer slips and errors in the plans. He couldn't even make an accurate copy, and was too much afraid of being found out to take time to check Tom's drawings. Jammed them into his fireplace soon's he'd finished. The thief!—the infernal thief!—the—!" Griffith spat out a curse that made even Mr. Leslie start.
"Good Lord, Griffith," he remonstrated. "That's the first time I ever heard you swear."
"I keep it fordirt! … Well, what you going to do about it?"
"I am going to have you show Ashton's plans to Blake. If he recognizes them as a copy of his own—"
"Better get ready to ship Laffie out of the country. Once saw Tom manhandle a brute who was beating his wife—one of those husky saloon bouncers. The wife had a month's nursing to do. Tom will pound that—that sneak to pulp."
"Show him the plans. If he recognizes them, I'll let the thief know he has been found out. He'll run, and we'll be rid of him without any scandal. We'll arrange for Blake to get the credit for the bridge, after a time. George Ashton and I are rather close together. I don't want him to be hit harder than's necessary."
"Say, Mr. Leslie, I don't mind admitting youaresquare!" exclaimedGriffith. "You don't like Tom, and you know he hasn't a line of proof.It would be only his word against Laffie's. Unknown engineer trying toblackmail the son of George Ashton. You know what would be said."
"I told you, I owe him a debt. I intend to pay it in full."
"One thing though," cautioned Griffith. "Even a cornered rat will fight. There's the chance that Laffie may not run. He'd be a drivelling idiot if he did, with his father's millions at stake. Don't forget we've no proof. It won't look even possible to outsiders. Suppose I hold off showing Tom those plans till we see if he can make it on the Zariba Dam? If he pulls that off, no engineer in the U. S. will doubt his claims to the bridge."
"That means a delay," said Mr. Leslie irritably. "My first plan was to send Blake to Michamac at once."
"Lord! With one cantilever finished and the other out to the central span—if it's Tom's bridge, he'd recognize it as quick as his plans. And if he did—well, I'd not answer for what would happen to that damn thief."
"H'm—perhaps you're right," considered Mr. Leslie. He thought a moment, and added with quick decision, "Very well. Keep him on at the dam. What are you paying him?"
"Two hundred."
"Double it."
"No go. He'd suspect something."
"Suspect, would he? H'm—several expert engineers have failed on that dam. If it can be put through, the project will net me a half-million. Ten per cent of my profits might stimulate you engineers. I offer fifty thousand dollars as reward to the man who solves the problem of the Zariba Dam."
"Say, that's going some!" commented Griffith.
"Plain business proposition. If I can't get it done for wages, it is cheaper to pay a bonus than to have the project fail."
"Good way to put it," admitted Griffith. "Don't just know, though, whatI'll do with all that money."
"You? Thought you said that Blake—"
"D'you suppose he'd take a cent of it? He's working for me."
"But if he does the work?"
"He might accept the credit. The cash would come to me, if he had to cram it down my throat. He won't touch your money."
"Crazy fool!" rasped Mr. Leslie. Again he paused to consider, and again he spoke with quick decision. "The Coville Company takes over the project. I don't believe the dam can be built; I'm tired of the whole thing. So I unload on the Coville Company. You see? The company offers the fifty thousand bonus as a last hope. It hires Blake direct on some of its routine work. You insist that he try for the dam, between times."
"That's the ticket!" said Griffith. "We'll try it on him."
"Then call by the Coville office. I'll phone over for them to have the transfer made and a letter waiting for you," said Mr. Leslie, and he jerked out his watch.
Griffith rose at the signal. He fumbled for a moment with his hat and gloves, and spoke with a queer catch in his voice. "I'd like to—let you know how I—appreciate—"
"No call for it! no call for it!" broke in Mr. Leslie. "Good-day!"
He whirled about to his desk and caught up the receiver of one of his private-line telephones.
Lord James sauntered into the office of Griffiths, C.E., and inquired for Mr. Blake. The cleric stared in vague recognition, and answered that Mr. Blake was busy. Nothing daunted, the visitor crossed to the door toward which the clerk had glanced.
When he entered, he found Blake in his shirtsleeves, humped over a small desk. He was intently absorbed in comparing the figures of two field books and in making little pencil diagrams.
"Hello, old man. What's the good word?" sang out his lordship.
Blake nodded absently, and went on with his last diagram. When he had finished it, he looked up and perceived his friend standing graceful and debonair in the centre of the room.
"Why, hello, Jimmy," he said, as if only just aware of the other's presence. "Can't you find a chair?"
"How's the dam?"
"Dam 'fi 'no," punned Blake. He slapped his pencil down on the desk, and flung up his arms to stretch his cramped body.
"You need a breather," advised Lord James.
"Young Ashton came 'round to my hotel last evening. Wanted me to go to some bally musical comedy—little supper afterward with two of the show-girls—all that. I had another engagement. He then asked me to drop around this morning and take my pick of his stable. Wants me to ride one of his mounts while I'm here, you know. Suppose you come up-town with me and help me pick out a beast."
"No," said Blake. "Less I see of that papa's boy the better I'll like him."
"Oh, but as a fellow-engineer, y'know," minced Lord James.
"You love him 'bout as much as I do."
Lord James adjusted the pink carnation in his lapel, and casually remarked: "You'll be calling at the Leslies' this afternoon, I daresay."
"No," said Blake.
"Indeed?" exclaimed the younger man. He flushed and gazed confusedly at Blake, pleased on his own account, yet none the less distressed for his friend.
Blake explained the situation with sober friendliness. "It's all up in the air, Jimmy. I've got to make good, and she won't promise anything even if I succeed."
"Not even if you succeed?" Lord James was bewildered.
"Can't say I blame her, since I've had time to think it over," said Blake. "If it was you, for instance, she might have a show to get some happiness out of life, even with the whiskey. But think of her tied up to me, whiskey or no whiskey!"
"You'll down the habit this time, old man."
Blake smiled ironically. "That's what you've said every time. It's what I've said myself, every time since I woke up to what the cursed sprees meant. No; don't be afraid. You'll have your chance soon enough. She has cut me clean off from outside help. She wouldn't even give me so much as a 'good luck to you'!"
"She wouldn't? But of course you know that she wishes it."
"Does she? But that's not the point. She's made me believe she isn't sure of her—of her feelings toward me. Don't think I blame her. I don't. She's right. If I can't stand up and fight it out and win, without being propped up by my friends, I ought to lose out. I'm not fit to marry any woman—much less her."
Lord James tugged and twisted at his mustache, and at last brought out his reply: "Now, I—I say, you look here, old chap, you've got to win this time. It means her, y'know. You must win."
"Jimmy," stated Blake, his eyes softening, "you're the limit!"
"You're not!" flashed back his friend. "There's no limit to you—to what you can do."
"Heap of good it does—your saying it," grumbled Blake.
"This—er—situation won't prevent your calling at the Leslies', I hope."
"I'm not so sure," considered Blake. "Leastways you won't see me there till I begin to think I see a way to figure out this dam."
Lord James swung a leg over the corner of the desk and proceeded to light a cigarette. Through the haze of the first two puffs he squinted across at the glum face of his friend, and said: "Don't be an ass. She hasn't told you not to call."
"No," admitted Blake. "Just the same, she said she wouldn't give me any help."
"That doesn't bar you from calling. The sight of her will keep you keen."
"I tell you, I'm not going near her house till I think I've a show to make good on this dam."
"Then you'll lunch with me and make an early call at the Gantrys'. MissDolores requested me to give you an urgent invitation."
"Excuseme!" said Blake. "No High Society in mine."
"You'll come," confidently rejoined his friend. "You owe it to MissGenevieve."
Blake frowned and sat for some moments studying the point. Lord James had him fast.
"Guess you've nailed me for once," he at last admitted. "Rather have a tooth pulled, though."
"I say, now, you got along swimmingly at Ruthby."
"With your father. He wasn't a Chicago society dame."
"Oh, well, you must make allowances for the madam. Miss Dolores explained to me that 'Vievie has only to meet people in order to be received, but mamma has to keep butting in to arrive—that's why she cultivates her grand air.'"
"No sham about Miss Dolores!" approved Blake.
"Right-o! You'll come, I take it. What if the dragon does have rather a frosty stare for you? She said I might bring you to call. Seriously, Tom, you must learn to meet her without showing that her manner flecks you. Best kind of training for society. As I said just now, you owe it to Miss Genevieve."
"Well—long as you put it that way," muttered Blake.
"You'll get along famously with Miss Dolores, I'm sure," said Lord James. "She's quite a charming girl,—vivacious and all that, you know. She's taken quite a fancy to you. The mother is one of those silly climbers who never look below the surface. You have twice my moral stamina, but just because I happen to have a title and some polish—"
"Don't try to gloze it over," cut in Blake. "Let's have it straight.You're a thoroughbred. I'm a broncho."
"Mistaken metaphor," rejoined his friend. "I'm a well-bred nonentity.You're a diamond in the rough. When once you've been cut and polished—"
"Then the flaws will show up in great shape," gibed Blake.
"Never think it, old man! There is only one flaw, and that will disappear with the one cutting required to bring the stone to the best possible shape."
"Stow it!" ordered Blake. The rattling of the doorknob drew his gaze about. "Here's Grif, back at last. He's been to chin with Papa Leslie." He squinted aggressively at the older engineer, who entered with his usual air of seeming absorption in the performance of his most trivial actions. "Hello, you Injin! Gone into partnership with H. V.? You've been there all morning."
"Other way 'round, if anything," answered Griffith. He nodded cordially in response to the greeting of Lord James, and began rummaging in his pockets as he came over to the desk. "Now, where's that letter? Hey?—Oh, here it is." He drew out a long envelope, and started to open it in a precise, deliberate manner.
"So he fired you, eh?" rallied Blake.
"In a way," said Griffith, peering at the paper in his hand. "It seems he's unloaded the Zariba project onto the Coville Company."
"Thought it couldn't be put through, eh?" said Blake. "Bet he didn't let it go for nothing, though."
"It's not often he comes out at the little end of the horn," replied Griffith. "Didn't take the Coville people long to wake up to the situation. Look here."
Blake took the opened letter, which was headed with the name and officers of the Coville Construction Company. He read it through with care, whistled, and read it through the second time.
"Well, what you think of it?" impatiently demanded Griffith.
"Whee!They sure must think H. V. has left them to hold the bag. Fifty thousand bonus to the engineer that shows 'em how the dam can be built!"
"Strict business," croaked Griffith. "The company is stuck if they quit. Fifty thousand is only ten per cent of their net profits if the project goes through. Wish I had a show at it."
"Well, haven't you? It says any engineer."
"I had quit before you came, only I didn't like to own up to H. V."
"You needn't yet a while. I'll keep digging away at it. If I put it through, we divvy up. I'm working for you. See?"
"Not on your life, Tommy! I don't smouge on another man's work."
"Well, then, we'll say I'm to split it because you put me next to the chance."
"No go. I've no use for three-fourths of what I'm making nowadays. It's just piling up on me. Look here. I happened to speak about you to the Coville people—looking ahead, you know. They want me to try you out on some work I'm too busy to do myself. It's not much, and they offer only one-fifty a month as a starter, but it may lead to something better than I can do for you."
"Yes, that's so," considered Blake.
"It is checking field work reports that come in slowly this time of year. That's the only trouble. You'll be sitting around doing nothing half the time—that is, unless you're fool enough to waste any more time on this dam' dam."
"Waste time?" cried Blake, his eyes flashing. "Watch me! Wait till you get your next bill for electric lights! You've given me my cue, Grif. I'm going to buck through this little proposition in one-two-three style, grab my fifty thousand, and plunge into the New York Four Hundred as Tommy Van Damdam. Clear out, you hobos. I'm going to work!"
"Don't forget I've got you on for lunch and Mrs. Gantry's," remindedLord James.
Blake paused, pencil in hand. "Aw, say, Jimmy, you'll have to let me off now."
"Can't do it, old man, really."
"At least that infernal call."
"No, you've got to get used to it. Tell you what, I'll let you off on the lunch if you'll be at my hotel at four sharp. Don't squirm. That gives you as many hours to grind as are good for you at one stretch. If you try to funk it, I'll hold you for both lunch and call. Your social progress is on my conscience."
"Huh!" rejoined Blake. "Don't wish you any hard luck, but if you and your conscience were in—"
"Four sharp, remember!" put in Lord James, dodging from the room.
Griffith followed him closely and shut the door.
"I'm not so busy, Mr. Scarbridge. Step into my private office and have a cigar," he invited, and as Lord James hesitated, he added in a lower tone, "Want your idea about him."
Lord James at once went with the engineer into his office.
"You wish to speak about Tom?" he said.
"Yes. Did you notice that look about his eyes? It's the first sign."
"Oh, no! let us hope not, Mr. Griffith. I happen to know he has suffered a severe disappointment. It may be that."
"Well, maybe. I hope so," said Griffith dubiously. With innate delicacy, he refrained from any inquiry as to the nature of Blake's disappointment. As he handed out his box of cigars, he went on, "I don't quite like it, though. He's a glutton for field work, but this indoors figuring soon sets him on edge. He can't stand being cooped up."
"Count on me to do all I can to get him out."
"Yes, I'm figuring on you, Mr. Scarbridge. He's told me all about you. Between the two of us, we might stave it off and keep him going for months. Wish I knew more about the girl—Miss Leslie. If she's the right sort, there's just a chance of something being done that I gave up as being impossible, last time he was with me—he might be straightened out for good."
"It's possible, quite possible! Others have been cured,—why not he?" exclaimed Lord James, his face aglow with boyish enthusiasm. But as suddenly it clouded. "Ah, though, most unfortunate—this stand of Miss Leslie's!"
"What about her?" queried Griffith, as the other hesitated.
"She has told him that he must win out absolutely on his own strength, without her aid or sympathy."
"Well, I'll be—switched! Thought she loved him."
Lord James flushed, yet answered without hesitancy. "It is to be presumed she does, otherwise she would not have forced this test upon him."
"How d' you make that out?"
"Mere grateful interest in his welfare would have been satisfied by the assurance of his material success. On the other hand, her—ah—feeling toward him is at present held in restraint by her acute judgment. She had reason to esteem him in that savage environment. She now realizes that he must win her esteem in her own proper environment. She is not merely a young lady—she is a lady. Her rare good sense tells her that she must not accept him unless he proves himself fit."
"He's a lot fitter than all these lallapaloozer papa's boys and some of their fathers,—all those empty-headed swells that are called eligibles," rejoined Griffith.
"It's not a question of polish or culture, believe me. She is far too clever to doubt that he would acquire that quickly enough. My reference was to this one flaw, which may yet shatter him. The question is whether it penetrates too deep into his nature. If not—if he can rid himself of it—then even I admit that he would make her happy."
"Yet she won't lift a finger to help him fight it out?"
"Courage is the fundamental virtue in a man. It includes moral strength. If she cannot be sure of his strength, she will always doubt him and her love for him."
"Can't see it that way. If she helped him, and he won out, he'd be cured, wouldn't he?"
"I've been trying to guess at a woman's reason, but I'm not so rash as to attempt to argue the matter," said Lord James. He picked up his hat and held out a cordial hand to the engineer. "She may or may not be right. I'm not altogether certain as to the intuitive wisdom of women. However that may be, we at least shall do our best to pull him through."
"That's talking, Mr. Scarbridge!" exclaimed Griffith.
Promptly at four that afternoon Blake was shown to the rooms of his friend at the hotel. He entered with a glum look not altogether assumed.
"Well, here I am," he grumbled. "Hope you're satisfied. You're robbing me of the best part of the day."
"I daresay," cheerfully assented Lord James. "Now look pleasant till I see if you're dressed."
"No, I haven't a thing on. Just clothed in sunshine and a sweet smile," growled Blake, throwing open his raincoat to show his suit of rough gray homespun. "You don't ever get me into that skirty coat again. I can stand full dress, but not that afternoon horror-gown. I'm no minister."
"Don't fash yourself, old man. At least you've been tailored in London, and that's something. You'll do—in Chicago."
"I'll do O.K. right here," said Blake. "What say? You've spoiled my afternoon. We'll call it quits if you settle down with me and put in the time chinning about things."
"Tammas, I'm shocked at you," reproved Lord James. "You cannot wish to disappoint Mrs. Gantry, really!"
"Mrs. Gantry be—"
"No, no! Do not say it, my deah Tammas! When one is in Society, y'know, one is privileged to think it, but it's bad form to express it so—ah—broadly—ah—I assure you."
He adjusted his monocle and stared with a vacuous blandness well calculated to madden his friend. Blake hurled a magazine, which his lordship deftly sidestepped. He reached for his hat, and faced Blake with boyish eagerness.
"Come on, Tom. Chuck the rotting. We're wasting time."
"Must have a taxicab waiting for you," bantered Blake.
"No, a young lady. Miss Dolores is really eager to become acquainted with you, and—er—she may have a friend or two—"
"Excuseme!"
"Tammas the quitter!"
Lord James started for the door, and Blake followed him, striving hard to maintain his surly look. At the street entrance he sought to postpone the coming ordeal by urging his need for exercise.
"Don't worry. I'll pay," said Lord James, pretending to misunderstand, and he raised his finger to the chauffeur of the nearest cab. "You can walk home, if you wish to save pennies. Now, you know, we desire to reach Mrs. Gantry's as soon as possible."
"Yes, we do!" growled Blake.
He seemed more than ever determined to remain in his glum mood, and the pleasant badinage of his friend during their run out to Lincoln Park Boulevard rather increased than lessened his surliness. When they entered through the old Colonial portal of the Gantry home, he jerked off his English topcoat unaided, contemptuously spurning the assistance of the buff-and-yellow liveried footman. But as they were announced, he assumed what Lord James termed his "poker face," and entered beside his friend, with head well up and shoulders squared.
"Good boy! Keep it up," murmured Lord James. "She'll take you for a distinguished personage."
Blake spoiled the effect by a grin, which, an instant later, was transformed into a radiant smile at sight of Genevieve beside Mrs. Gantry.
Dolores came darting to meet them, her black eyes sparkling and her lithe young body aquiver with animation.
"Oh, Lord Avondale!" she cried. "So youdidmake him come. Mr. Blake, why didn't you call at once?"
"Wasn't asked," answered Blake, his eyes twinkling.
"You are now. So please remember to come often. Never fear mamma. I'll protect you. Oh, I'm just on tiptoe to see you in those skin things you wore in Africa. I made Vievie put on her leopard-skin gown, and I think it's the most terrible romantic thing! And now I'm just dying to see your hyena-skin trousers and those awful poisoned arrows and—"
"Dolores!" admonished Mrs. Gantry.
"Oh, piffle!" complained the girl, drawing aside for the men to pass her.
Even Mrs. Gantry was not equal to the rudeness of snubbing a caller in her own house—when she had given an earl permission to bring him. But the contrast between her greetings of the two men was, to say the least, noticeable.
Blake met her supercilious bearing toward him with an impassiveness that was intended to mask his contemptuous resentment. But Genevieve saw and understood. She rose and quietly remarked: "You'll excuse us, Aunt Amice. I wish Mr. Blake to see the palm room. I fancy it will carry him back to Mozambique."
Mrs. Gantry's look said that she wished Mr. Blake could be carried back to Mozambique and kept there. Her tongue said: "As you please, my dear. Yet I should have thought you'd had quite enough of Africa for a lifetime."
"One never can tell," replied Genevieve with a coldness that chilled the glow in Blake's eyes.
They went out side by side yet perceptibly constrained in their bearing toward one another.
Dolores flung herself across the room and into a chair facing her mother and Lord James.
"Did you see that?" she demanded. "I do believe Vievie is the coldest blooded creature! When she knows he's just dying for love of her! Why, I never—"
"That will do!" interrupted Mrs. Gantry.
"I'll leave it to Lord Avondale. Isn't it the exact truth?"
"Er—he still looks rather robust," parried Lord James.
"You know what I mean. But I didn't think she'd behave in this dog-in-the-manger fashion. She might have at least given me a chance for a tete-a-tete with him, even if he isherhero."
"I am only too well aware what Lord Avondale will think ofyou, going on in this silly way," observed Mrs. Gantry.
"If Lord Avondale doesn't like me and my manners, he needn't. Need you,Mr. Scarbridge?"
"But how can I help liking you?" asked the young Englishman with such evident sincerity that the girl was disconcerted. She flashed a bewildered glance into his earnest face, and turned quickly away, her cheeks scarlet with confusion.
"Ah, Earl," purred her mother, "I fully appreciate your kindness. She is Genevieve's cousin. You are therefore pleased to disregard her gaucheries."
"Ho! so that's it?" retorted Dolores. "Lord Avondale needn't trouble to disregard anything about me."
"Believe me, I do not, Miss Gantry," replied Lord James. "I find you most charming."
"Because I'm Vievie's cousin! Well, if you wish to know what I think, I think all Englishmen are simply detestable!" cried the girl, and she sprang up and flounced away, her face crimson with anger.
"You had better go straight to your room," reproved her mother.
The girl promptly dodged the doorway for which she was headed, and veered around to a window, where she turned her back on them and perched herself on the arm of a chair.
Mrs. Gantry sighed profoundly. "A-a-ah!Was ever a mother so tried!Such temper, such perversity! Her father, all over again!"
"If you'll permit me to offer a suggestion," ventured Lord James, "may it not be that you drive with rather too taut a rein?"
"Too taut! Can you not see? The slightest relaxation, and I should have a runaway."
"But a little freedom to canter? It's this chafing against the bit. So high spirited, you know. I must confess, it's that which I find most charming about her."
"Impossible! You cannot realize."
"Then, too, her candor—one of the rarest and most admirable traits in a woman."
"Simply terrible! That she should fling her—opinion of you in your face!"
"Better that than the usual insincerity in such cases of dislike. It gives me reason to hope that eventually I can win her friendship."
"Your kindness is more than I can ever repay!"
"You can by granting me a single favor."
"Indeed?" Mrs. Gantry raised her eyebrows in high arches.
"By receiving my friend as my friend."
"Ah! Had you not asked permission to bring him, he would not have been received at all."
"Not even as the man who saved your niece?"
"That is an obligation to be discharged by her father."
"I see. Very well, then. Regarding him simply as my friend, I ask you to consider that he is undergoing a most difficult, I may say, cruel test. He must overcome something that he has vainly fought for years—something that has crushed many of the greatest intellects the world has known."
"The more reason for me to save Genevieve from ruin. From what you say,I imply that it is a hopeless case of degeneracy."
"Not hopeless; and degenerate in that respect alone—if you must insist on the term."
"I do insist."
"What if he should succeed in overcoming it?"
"He cannot. Even should he seem to, there will always be a weakness to be feared."
"Is that just?"
"It is just to Genevieve."
"Everything for Vievie, coronet included!" called Dolores over her shoulder.
Mrs. Gantry's English complexion deepened to the purple of mortification. The frank smile that told of his lordship's enjoyment of her discomfiture was the last straw. She rose in her stateliest manner.
"I shall leave you a few moments to be entertained by the dear child, since you find her so amusing," she said. "Genevieve must not be permitted to remain too long in the close hot air of the palm room."
"There's some hot air outside the conservatory, mamma," remarkedDolores.
But Mrs. Gantry sailed majestically from the room, without deigning to heed the pleasantry.
Lord James sauntered across to the window and perched himself on a chair arm close before the girl.
"When do you begin?" he asked. "Your mamma said you were to entertain me."
"Best possible reason why I shouldn't," she snapped, staring hard out of the window.
"What if I should try to entertain you?"
"You wouldn't succeed. I wanted to talk to a man. It's too bad! Simply because you asked me to, I was silly enough to tease Vievie into coming over this afternoon—and the minute he comes, she rushes him off to the conservatory."
"Believe me, I regret quite as keenly that she did not take me instead."
"That's complimentary—to me!"
"Can you blame me for agreeing, when you express a preference for the man instead of the mere son of a duke?"
"Perhaps you're a man yourself. Who knows?"
"Quien sabe, Senorita Dolores?" he rallied her. "Tell me how to prove it."
She flashed him a glance of naive coquetry. "You ask how? If I were my great grandmother, you might try to kiss me, and chance a stiletto thrust in return."
"Your great grandmother was an Italian?"