"So long as Pleasure calls us up,And duty drives us down,If you love me as I love you,What pair so happy as we two?"
"So long as Pleasure calls us up,And duty drives us down,If you love me as I love you,What pair so happy as we two?"
"So long as Pleasure calls us up,
And duty drives us down,
If you love me as I love you,
What pair so happy as we two?"
John glanced up quickly and saw that Brennan was pretending he just happened to think of the verse and had quoted it with no particular intention or reference to the thoughts of either of them.
"'And duty drives us down,'" he repeated, smiling.
A little later all thoughts of Gibson and the suggestion that Consuello be consulted in the search for him fled from their heads when they were called by telephone and told that Murphy was sinking rapidly and was not expected to live many more hours. Together they hurried to the Clara Barton hospital.
"I wish he could know that the brutes who beat him have been arrested," said Brennan as they turned west into Fifth street from Broadway. "I tried to talk to them, to find out from them what poor Tim said and did before they knocked him out, but they wouldn't answer. They know what they're up against if he dies and their lawyer has told them to keep their mouths shut. I had the satisfaction of telling them, though, that I'd be on hand to write the story when they are hanged and that I was looking forward to the assignment. 'Slim' almost broke down when I said it."
The mayor, two doctors and a nurse were in the room when they entered. Murphy lay inert on the bed. He had never regained consciousness, the doctors said, and he was in such a weakened condition that only a miracle beyond the skill of surgery and medicine could save him. The mayor looked at them in silence as they approached the bed beside whichhe was seated in a chair. They saw that there were tears in his eyes, tears that he was not ashamed of others seeing.
For a quarter of an hour they stood at the bedside while one of the doctors frequently felt Murphy's wrist to catch the fluttering pulse. Then a sound came from the bandaged head and the doctor leaned over, putting his ear close to the hidden face. They heard the sound again and realized it was a whisper.
"He's saying something about the Gallant kid," said the doctor looking up.
John moved to the head of the bed and, leaning over it, said:
"Yes, Murphy; I'm here."
The whisper rose a little becoming audible throughout the room.
"I'm croaking—I guess—ain't I?" it asked.
"You're all right—Tim," John managed to say.
"I didn't squeal—kid—they got me—I didn't tell 'em it was you and Brennan."
"We know you didn't, Murphy."
"I wanna tell ya something—before I go—see?" The whisper became fainter. "I wasn't workin' for ya—for da jack—ya gave me—see? I did it 'cause—my old man—my old man——" The whisper stopped.
"Yes, Tim."
"'Cause—my old man—my—old—man—was—was—'Red Mike,'—see?"
A quick intake of breath by Brennan was the only sound that broke the tense silence.
"So—I—wasn't—no—dirty—stool—pigeon——" The whisper stopped again. Murphy drew his last breath and with it he said his last word:
"See?"
* * *
The news of Murphy's death was printed in the late editions. His voice shaking with suppressed emotion, Brennan dictated the brief announcement of the passing of the twisted-nose youth by telephone to the office.
"Tim Murphy, who was brutally beaten by 'Gink' Cummings' thugs yesterday, died at the Clara Barton hospital as a result of his injuries late today," Brennan said over the phone. At the other end of the wire a reporter was taking the dictation on a typewriter. "Before he died Murphy regained consciousness long enough to disclose that he was the son of 'Red Mike,' now serving a life sentence for having attempted to wreck the Southern Pacific 'Lark.' It was because he believed his father had been the victim of former Police Commissioner Gibsons' lust for glory, he said, that he aided in disclosing Gibson's plot with Cummings to seize control of the city government. Hisdeath means that 'Slim' Gray, Cummings' right-hand man, and his two strong-arm men now under arrest, will be charged with murder and that a murder complaint will be issued against Cummings."
They were silent as they wove their way through the hurrying streams of men and women in Fifth street homeward bound after the work of the day in downtown stores and offices. On the corners newsboys were still selling editions of their paper with the exposure of the Gibson-Cummings plot as fast as they could hand them out. They saw several men stop where they had bought the paper and stand, jostled by the crowd, reading the story absorbedly, apparently amazed by what was on the printed page beneath their eyes.
From the corner of Fifth and Broadway, where he left Brennan waiting for a street car, John went to the receiving hospital to have the wounds on his face and his maimed hand dressed again before he started home. The gauze bandages on his forehead and cheek were replaced with strips of medicated plaster which were less conspicuous, but it would be more than two weeks, the hospital surgeon told him, before the splints could be removed from his hand.
His mother was at the door to meet him when he arrived home. Her face paled as shesaw the plaster hiding the cuts on his cheek and forehead and the bandage on his hand. He took her in his arms quickly.
"I'm all right, mother, dearest," he said. "Don't worry, I'm all right."
"My boy, my boy! Why didn't you let me know you were hurt?"
"There, there, mother," he said, softly patting her with his uninjured hand. "It's nothing to worry about. I've only a couple of scratches on my face and my hand is hurt a little."
He led her into the living room and, seating her in a rocking chair, he dropped to his knees at her feet, as he had in the grief and despair that stunned him when his father died. With caresses and soft words of assurance he soothed her until her dismay left her. At dinner, which had been waiting for him, he told her everything that had occurred since he left her twenty-four hours past. At the end of his story he explained to her what it would all mean to him.
"The 'chief,' that is Mr. Phillips, our publisher, has promised me a contract at double what I'm getting now," he told her. "And, besides, he says Brennan and I are entitled to a bonus for what we've done. It means, mother, dearest, that I've made good; that I've arrived as a newspaper man."
"You know how proud I am of you, John," Mrs. Gallant said. "I never imagined that newspaper work was so strenuous. I thought a reporter's work was writing news instead of making it."
"Newspapers, I have learned, mother, are vigilant guards of the interests of the people," he said. "It is a newspaper's duty to inform the public of what occurs and to prevent as well as condemn wrong. Mr. Phillips told us that the unmasking of Gibson was newspaper enterprise by which the city as well as the paper benefited. Thousands of things not as conspicuous as this are done every year by a newspaper and its reporters and editors.
"Without publicity wrong would go undetected and unpunished. Think of what would have happened if Gibson had been elected mayor of Los Angeles. For at least four years 'Gink' Cummings would have ruled the city and you can imagine what that would have meant."
They were about to leave the supper table when Mrs. Sprockett, weeping hysterically, appeared in a state of excitement that alarmed them. Wringing her hands, sobbing distractedly, she flung herself into a chair and moaned in such a way that Mrs. Gallant hurried to her side anxiously.
"My Alma! My Alma! My girl!" Mrs. Sprockett wept.
"What is it? Tell us. Can we help?" asked Mrs. Gallant while John had a momentary apprehension that Mrs. Sprockett's condition might be the result of a discovery that her daughter had visited the corner motion picture theater surreptitiously.
"She's gone," Mrs. Sprockett gasped.
"Gone?" Mrs. Gallant exclaimed.
"Gone," Mrs. Sprockett repeated, and then, with a sob of despair, she added, "Kidnaped!"
"You mean she has disappeared?" asked John, feeling that her fear that Alma had been abducted might be far-fetched.
"She has been gone since morning," continued Mrs. Sprockett, a little calmed by the sound of a masculine voice. "Ever since morning. Someone has stolen her. Oh, my little girl; someone has stolen her. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
"Try to calm yourself," urged Mrs. Gallant. "She will probably return before long."
"She left no note? Gave no warning?" John asked. "She may have run away of her own accord, you know," he added.
Mrs. Sprockett stopped her sobbing and sat upright in her chair. Indignation blazed in her eyes.
"How dare you, sir? How dare you?" she demanded, furiously. "How dare you stand there and tell me that my Alma left me of herown free will? My Alma leave her mother who loves her so? My Alma run away like some common scamp? I didn't come here to be insulted like that, sir!"
A look from his mother caused John to repress an inclination to ask her to tell him really why she came to them.
"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I didn't mean to insinuate——"
"You did! You did! You stood up there and told me that my little girl who loves her mother ran away from home," Mrs. Sprockett cried, irrationally. "That's what you did! You stood up there——"
"I'm sorry," interrupted John, moving from the room to avoid the outburst.
He stepped out on the porch and found Mrs. Sprockett's husband, coatless and collarless as usual, with the same weary look about his eyes and the same hopeless droop of his narrow, rounded shoulders, mounting the steps. Across the street, in the Sprockett home, the baby wailed and fretted.
"Beg pardon," began Mrs. Sprockett's husband. "I just thought——"
"Yes, she's inside," said John, anticipating the inevitable question.
Instead of moving on into the house Mrs. Sprockett's husband stood where he had stopped.
"Our Alma——" he began.
"If you want my advice," said John, interrupting again, "I would wait until morning if I were you and then ask the police to help you find her."
No storm of protest came from Mrs. Sprockett's husband. The instinctive fraternalism of man between man caused him to signal, with a nod of his head, for John to come closer to him. With frequent apprehensive glances toward the door, he whispered:
"Alma's not a bad girl, but she's been held down too much. She's only sixteen and she likes pretty things and picture shows and other things a girl of her age likes naturally. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if she's just picked up and left to go to work some place and have a little more freedom. She's not a bad girl, she's—she's—just a girl, that's all, and she wants to do what other girls do. But, of course, I want her back."
John's sympathy swept away the anger that had surged through him when Mrs. Sprockett became irate.
"I think you're right," he said, remembering how Alma had begged him to refrain from telling anyone that he had seen her leaving the picture show.
"Don't say a word about what I've said to you, will you?" asked Mrs. Sprockett'shusband, involuntarily shrinking away from the steps.
"Never fear," John assured him, "and if I can help, let me know."
"Thanks, I will, but Maud—well—you know how it is—you know—sometimes," said Mrs. Sprockett's husband.
"I know," said John, and Sprockett hurried back across the street. A few minutes later the baby's wailing stopped. Mrs. Sprockett's husband appeared on the porch of the Sprockett house with a bundle of blankets in his arms and pacing back and forth, whistled a familiar tune as a lullaby. John listened and distinguished the notes of the father's whistling and smiled to himself as he recognized it as an off-key variation of "The Merry Widow Waltz."
Mrs. Sprockett, still sobbing, and Mrs. Gallant, with her arm around her, emerged from the house.
"I'm going to keep Mrs. Sprockett company until she can rest," Mrs. Gallant explained.
John watched them cross the street and saw the door close behind them. Soon the whistling ceased and Sprockett and the baby went inside.
For half an hour John lolled on the porch, pondering over Alma's disappearance, the abjectedness of Mrs. Sprockett's husband and the spectacle of Mrs. Sprockett's wilfulness.Had Mr. and Mrs. Sprockett ever, ever been deeply in love, exulting in the happiness before them in married life? How miserable it was that Sprockett had to whisper to him "not to tell," exactly as Alma had?
He found his thoughts distressful and was about to rise, planning an hour with his books before going to sleep, when an automobile—he knew by the outline it was a taxicab—stopped before the house. The driver opened the door and a figure stepped out, hurrying up toward him.
As he came to his feet he saw that it was a girl who was approaching him.
"Mr. Gallant?" a familiar voice asked.
"Yes."
The figure came closer to him and he saw that it was Consuello's friend and companion, Betty.
Abashed by Betty's unexpected appearance at his home and with a sudden fear that something had happened to Consuello possessing him, John waited for her to speak. He noticed that she had not dismissed the cab that waited at the curb.
"Can you come with me immediately?" she asked, quickly. "I want you to see Consuello, tonight."
"Did she send you for me?" he entreated.
"No, but I know that she wants you," she replied.
"Are you sure?" he persisted.
"Don't be a foolish boy," she said, with a gesture of impatience. "No one in the world knows Consuello as well as I do. I am doing this for her. Do you think for a moment that I would be here if I wasn't certain I was doing the proper thing?"
"I know she trusts you," he said, reassured by her mild vexation.
"Hurry, then; I'll explain things while we're on our way. I'll wait for you in the cab," she said.
Mrs. Sprockett's husband answered the door when he crossed the street to the Sprocketthome to tell his mother he had been called away.
"Tell mother that I'm going to see a friend and that I'll be home before it is late," he said. "Tell her there's no need to worry about me."
"Just a minute and I'll call her," Mrs. Sprockett's husband suggested.
"No, just give her my message," he said, apprehensive of the probable consequences of telling his mother that it was Consuello he was going to meet.
As the cab started away from the curb he turned to Betty with the question that, in his mind, had been begging for an answer from the moment he recognized her.
"How is she?" he asked, his voice betraying his anxiety.
"She is very brave," Betty said, earnestly.
"Perhaps I should not ask you this, but has she seen—Gibson?" So much, he felt, depended on her reply to this question. If Consuello had already talked with Gibson and Betty divined that she wanted to see him, then——
"Perhaps I should not tell you, but—she has talked to him. That's as much as I will tell you. The rest must come from her," Betty replied.
She had talked with Gibson and yet she wanted to see him! Or, could Betty bemistaken? Had she interpreted Consuello's mood erroneously in coming for him?
"Forgive me for my doubtfulness," he said, "but are you certain that she wants to see me?"
A shade of exasperation crossed Betty's face.
"You said a moment ago that you knew Consuello trusted me," she said. "If she trusts me, then why can't you?"
Reassured by this pertinent counter question he deduced that Betty, with the welfare of Consuello at heart, had concluded that he might be able to furnish the solace her companion needed in her hour of trial. The ecstasy that had thrilled him when he first realized that he loved Consuello returned to him as the cab sped through the streets. She knew now why he had beseeched her to think of him as doing what he thought was right. And she had kept her promise! A glance through the window of the cab at a lighted corner told him that they were nearing their destination.
"I'm going to leave you alone with her," Betty said, with the frankness that she had displayed when they first met. "I need not ask you to be very considerate, to do everything you can to comfort her. In my heart I feel that what has happened is all for the best. How dreadful it would have been if she had been compelled to make this discovery for herself after they were married.
"I told her that I would be away until late; that I was busy. We'll stop at the corner to let you out, because she knows that I took a cab when I left and she might suspect that I went for you. Here we are."
She called to the driver to stop.
"It was kind of you——" he began as he stood at the cab door after alighting. She stopped him with a gesture of her hand. Then, leaning forward a little, her eyes dancing with a smile, she said:
"Don't you know that I know you love her?"
The door closed quickly and the cab spurted away from the curb, leaving him standing bewildered and yet overjoyed by the audacious words she had spoken. So that was why she had called him to Consuello! If Betty knew it, then Consuello, too, must realize that he loved her. The thought frightened him. It had never occurred to him before that she might know. Somehow, he had not dared to imagine that she cared enough even to guess that he loved her.
He went slowly to the opening in the hedge of boxwood that lined the sidewalk in front of Consuello's artistic little dream home and turned into the pathway between the patches of rosebushes. A heavy fragrance from the blossoms filled the still night air. As he stepped on to the porch and reached for theknocker with his left hand he recalled suddenly that his face bore strips of plaster over his wounds and that his right hand was held rigid in splints. The hesitancy that this recollection gave forsook him when he remembered that Betty had made no comment on his appearance, probably because she had seen the photograph of him that had been published in the paper. Emboldened he rapped with the knocker.
She wore the same simple white frock that he had admired when they first met. For a moment she stood with her hand on the knob of the door, the look of surprise in her eyes fading to an expression of mingled pleasure and perplexity.
"Come in," she invited.
He saw that a tender light, the softness of sympathy, came into her eyes when she noticed the plasters on his forehead and cheek. Then, when she extended her hand to him and he stood awkwardly unable to take it without first disposing of the hat he held, she apologized for her forgetfulness.
"I'm sorry," she said, quickly compassionate.
"It's nothing," he said. "Only a scratch or two, that's all."
They crossed to the fireplace, where she took a chair near the rose shaded table lamp, the only illumination in the room. He satopposite her, his back toward the door, waiting for her to speak.
"I was thinking of you when you rapped on the door," she said. "I was alone beside my window looking out toward my hill. The darkness of the night prevented me from seeing it, but I knew it was there. Though I could not see it, I looked to it for comfort."
"It won't be hidden from you long," he said. "When the morning comes it will be there and the darkness will be gone."
"When the morning comes," she said, softly, "there'll be sunshine and flowers and birds—and happiness. But it is there for me now, steadfast, loyal, abiding. I know now why I love the hills more than the ocean. They are so fixed, so permanent; unchanging, unmoving; while the ocean storms and calms, thunders and ripples, lures you to its depths and—drowns you."
John knew the inner meaning of her words. Sincerity and deceit. Trustworthiness and treachery. Genuineness and make-believe.
"Was it difficult for you to keep your promise?" he asked, breaking the silence that had followed after she had spoken.
"To understand that you did what you thought was right?" she inquired. He nodded.
"No," she said, "I never doubted that. ButI was never really put to the test. My decision was made before I thought of what I had promised you."
She paused and then, lifting her eyes to meet his, she continued:
"You see, I believe there is only one real love between a man and a woman and that is the love that endures all things. I have always thought—and I still do—that a woman who sincerely loves a man will stay by his side even if the whole world is against him. Unless a woman can do that willingly, gladly, I do not believe that it is real love.
"He came here early Sunday morning and asked me to go away with him. I could not understand and he did not explain. He simply said that something had happened that would prevent him from ever becoming mayor of Los Angeles and that he was going away, never to return.
"'If you love me, you will come with me,' he said. I was bewildered, of course, but I knew that he was right. It was the test, a test far greater than I had ever dreamed would come to me.
"I asked him why it was that he should be compelled to leave the city. He assured me that he had committed no crime. He was very earnest as he spoke and so serious that I knew something terrible had happened. He declaredagain and again that he loved me and that if I loved him I would go with him and ask no questions. It was all so overwhelming that I begged him to leave me, to let me decide alone.
"'I will let you know, tonight,' I told him. 'Unless you hear from me you will know that I have decided I cannot do what you have asked me.'
"Soon after he was gone I realized that—that I did not love him with the one great love. I knew that I didn't because I had not thrown myself into his arms and told him, as Ruth told Naomi, 'For whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge.'
"I need not tell you in details of how bewildered I was by his strange request and what I went through when I found that I did not really love him. Of course, I tried to imagine what had occurred that caused him to ask me to leave everything and go away with him. Whatever it was, I felt it was cowardly of him to leave unless it was all his own fault.
"So he did not hear from me last night and this morning I read of what he stands accused. But I was prepared. I had chosen my course and what I read only made me certain that I was right; that I did not truly love him, never had and never could. I pitied his weakness. I could see how he had gone astray. You see, I have often wondered how it was he hadmoney so suddenly after everything he once had had gone from him. The source of his wealth was always a mystery to me."
She paused and looking toward the casement window with its red geraniums, she added, softly: "That is my story. That is what has happened."
In the silence that followed they were both startled to hear footsteps on the porch outside. Consuello looked toward him, quickly, with an expression that warned him. The door swung open and Gibson stepped in, closing it behind him.
"I thought I'd find you here," he said.
His face was pale and a smile that was half a sneer was on his lips as he stood looking at them. John was on his feet facing him and a glance showed that Consuello had also risen from her chair at Gibson's unexpected entrance.
"The girl who said that she loved me and the man who pretended he was my friend," said Gibson, sarcastically.
John's muscles tightened and he bit his lip to restrain the words of warning to Gibson that he was about to speak.
"If you have come here to——" he heard Consuello say, coolly, evenly.
"I came here to say good-by to you," Gibson interrupted, "and to make certain that there had not been some mistake. I thought youmight have tried to reach me last night and failed, or that you might have changed your mind." He paused a moment before adding, "But I know better now."
"You should have known last night," Consuello said. "You should have known that if I had decided to do what you asked me I would have come to you, found you wherever you were."
"I should have known months ago, if I had not been such a blind fool," said Gibson bitterly.
"You were a blind fool," said Consuello, "but not as I suspect you think. You were blinded by your own selfish indolence. You said a moment ago that I told you I loved you. I did tell you that and I thought that I meant it, but when I found that I could not go with you as you asked I knew I had been mistaken. You must remember that I decided against you before I knew the reason you wanted me to leave."
The half-sarcastic smile curled Gibson's lips.
"Then you'll admit that something else—someone else, perhaps——" he said.
"I saw no one, except Betty, from the time you left until Mr. Gallant came this evening," Consuello said. "I'm thankful that I was able to decide before I read what was in the paper today. Reggie, how often have I told you myconception of love. Don't you know that if I cared for you nothing would have kept me from you? I cannot tell you why it was; I can only tell you how. I knew as soon as I realized that I had refused to go with you blindly that it was not love, the real love, that I had in my heart for you."
"And suppose I had not asked you to go away with me? Suppose I came to you tonight and asked you to stand by me, right here in Los Angeles?"
"It would have been the same," Consuello replied quietly. "I would have given you the same answer."
As she spoke Gibson gazed at her intently and the anger that had smouldered in his eyes disappeared and he forced a smile to his lips as he turned toward John.
"Gallant," he said, "I saw you take terrible punishment one night and stagger to your feet until you were knocked senseless. I admired you that night, Gallant; I envied your courage. When Charlie Murray made his little talk I think I was the first to respond. If you found a $50 bill in what Charlie turned over to you, you know now who tossed it into the ring." He paused, looked to the floor and then back into John's face.
"Tonight you have watched me take mypunishment," he continued. "I stood on my feet and cheered when you came back into the ring and when you left. I don't want pity or sympathy, but I want you to have a cheer in your heart for me when I go."
Gibson's change from sarcasm and bitterness to a show of manliness relieved the tenseness of the situation. Consuello sank into a chair and gazing into the fireplace, where flames had once sparkled as bright as her romance with Gibson and now only cold ashes remained, left the two men facing each other.
"No one has ever doubted your courage," John said.
"I hope you do not think that I had anything to do with the death of Murphy or the attack upon yourself," said Gibson. "If I had known what they were going to do I would have died fighting them. I took Cummings' gun from him when he fired at you and the others in the automobile. From that minute I have neither seen nor heard from him. If I ever run across him I'll bring him back and surrender him to the district attorney. That is the way I hope to win condonement for what I've done. That is where I'm going when I leave here tonight, to search for him, to the ends of the earth if it is necessary."
"If ever, while you're away, you need help,let me know," John said, with an impulsive desire to take Gibson's hand. But he stood still, waiting for the other to continue.
"When I came here tonight and found you two together I said things that I'm sorry ever escaped my lips," said Gibson. "I was a cad and no matter what you may think of me for the other things I've done, I want you to forgive me—both of you—for that alone."
Their silence assured him that they were anxious to forget his display of bitterness.
"Will you do me this favor, Gallant?" he continued. "Will you publish tomorrow that you have seen me and that I've started search for Cummings and won't return to Los Angeles until I bring him back with me? Just that much and no more."
"That much and no more," John promised.
Then Gibson turned toward Consuello. She had bowed her head in her hand. He hesitated a moment and then walked slowly to the side of her chair.
"Good-by, Conny," he said.
She looked up at him, tears brimming in her eyes, her under lip caught between her teeth. He tried to force a smile to his lips, but it balked.
"Good-by," she said, and her voice trembled.
He turned away quickly, as if he felt he could not trust himself to be at her side asecond longer. He stopped again, facing John.
"Just one thing more, Gallant," he said.
"Yes," said John, his voice queerly out of pitch.
Gibson looked him straight in the eyes.
"You love her, don't you?" he asked.
Unable to speak what was in his heart, John stood silent. He moistened his lips with his tongue and wondered why it was he could not shout back his answer. Flustered by the boldness of the question put to him so directly, a thought flashed into his mind of Betty's frank declaration that she knew he loved Consuello. Then he discovered the reason why his mother had been so perturbed by his frequent meetings with her. She, too, undoubtedly knew he was in love!
While these thoughts were racing through his head, Gibson put his hand on his shoulder.
"You need not answer, Gallant," he said, "because your silence is enough. Regardless of how incongruous it seems in view of the great wrong I have done her, I love her, too. And, because I love her I can tell that you do. I can see it by the way you speak to her, the way you look at her and unless I am greatly mistaken she knows it as well as you and I do."
He grasped John's left hand in his own.
"Take care of her, Gallant; love her andtry to make her happy," he said. He turned and walked to the door, leaving John speechless and motionless, staring after him. At the threshold he wheeled to face them again.
"Exit, the villain," he said slowly and smiling.
The door closed behind him and his footsteps, taking him steadily, not too fast, not too slowly, from the house, diminished until the only sound audible in the room was the ticking of the clock on the mantel of the fireplace.
John, his back toward Consuello, his eyes on the door, wondering whether it was all a dream, a cheer in his heart for the man who had left them so dramatically, feared to move.
"Exit, the villain"—Gibson's last words—echoed in his brain.
He imagined he heard Brennan saying: "A grandstander, a grandstander to the last."
When he finally turned around, Consuello was standing by the open casement window, looking out into the night, her fingers touching the petals of the geraniums on the sill, in the same position in which she had stood when she had recited to him the little verse with its simple, homely philosophy.
He moved to her side, marveling at her unaffected beauty.
Looking out of the window he saw that the moon, which had been hidden by the clouds anhour before, had crested her "green and friendly hill" with an outline of silvery-blue.
Something in her pose that suggested to him that she was waiting for him to speak gave him the courage. Yet he was afraid to look at her as he spoke, afraid to see what effect his words had upon her.
"I do—love you," he said.
That little gasp as she caught her breath, what did it mean? Still unable to face her, he continued:
"He knew it; Betty knows it; mother knows it and I want the whole world to know it—I love you." He could say no more.
Gently, caressingly, her small white fingers touched his unbandaged hand. Tremulously he turned his head and saw her answer in her eyes and slowly, almost reverently, he lifted her hand to his lips. A mocking bird broke into joyous song in a tree outside, a golden flood of music to mock the silent song in his heart.
* * *
Lights were shining through the curtains on the windows of the Sprockett house and his mother was waiting up for him when he returned home. As he took her in his arms to kiss her forehead tenderly he had a fantasy that the wonderfulness of his requited love had miraculously altered his mother's opinionof Consuello. But it was a fantasy, only that.
"Mother, dearest," he whispered, "I'm the happiest man in the world, tonight."
His mother drew back from him and the intuition that had advised her that her son was in love with Consuello, long before he realized it himself, told her the reason for his happiness. She turned away and pressing a handkerchief to her eyes left him with a discordant note breaking the harmony of his ecstasy.
A doctor is awarded his diploma; a lawyer is admitted to the bar; a preacher is given a pulpit; an actor rises from understudy to the leading role; a newspaper reporter is given a "by-line" and sees his name over a story for the first time.
Under the big head-line. "Gibson Found; Quits Race," and over the announcement Gibson had authorized—"that much and no more"—appeared the magic words, "By John Gallant."
By that simple token he passed automatically from the position of "cub" to be a full-fledged reporter.
The only ceremony marking the graduation was when Brennan, leaning over his shoulder as he gazed at his "by-line," said in his ear:
"Looks pretty nice, doesn't it?"
The story stated plainly that Gibson authorized the publication of the statement that he was leaving Los Angeles to search for "Gink" Cummings and did not intend returning until he brought Cummings back with him to face trial for the murder of Murphy, as co-defendant with "Slim" Gray and his two "bashers." John explained to P. Q. that he had givenhis word of honor that he would print nothing but the brief announcement. With the city editor's consent he omitted mentioning where he had met Gibson and under what circumstances Gibson had talked with him.
"A newspaper reporter's word must be as good as his bond," said P. Q. "Remember, Gallant, never to print what you have received in confidence. I fired more than one reporter because he broke his word, although in breaking it he gave us a whale of an exclusive story."
Shortly after the first edition was on the streets, John looked up from his typewriter to find Mrs. Sprockett standing beside his desk, about to speak to him. Nervous, distressed, her eyes reddened from a sleepless night of weeping, she asked him if he was too busy to spare her a moment.
"Not at all," he said, rising and placing a chair for her beside his desk.
Fumbling with her handkerchief and appearing apologetic for having spoken to him so sharply the night before, she told him that Alma had been away from home all night and had not returned yet.
"Then, Mrs. Sprockett, there's only one thing for you to do," he said, "and that is to inform the police."
"I have just come from the police station," Mrs. Sprockett said. "They sent me here.They told me that the best way to find a missing girl was through the newspapers. They said that in 99 cases out of 100 girls who disappear are either found or traced by the newspapers and newspaper men.
"Of course, you know how much I regret having anything concerning Alma appear in the newspapers. I thought there was some other way to find her, some way that would attract less attention. But if it has to be, it has to be, and I'll do anything to bring my little girl back to us."
"You will do the sensible thing if you permit the publication of Alma's picture and a brief story that she is missing," John said.
Mrs. Sprockett drew from her bag a photograph of her daughter and gave John a description of her and the facts relative to her disappearance.
"If anything has happened to her it will kill me," she said, as she rose to go. "I'll owe a debt I can never repay to the one who brings her back to me."
The photograph of Alma and the brief story that went with it appeared in the second edition and John wondered if Mrs. Sprockett's husband had dared to make the suggestion that had sent his wife to the police.
Soon after Mrs. Sprockett left the office, John, unable to wait a minute longer withouthearing her voice, telephoned to Consuello's home. He wanted to tell her again that he loved her, and again and again, and he wanted to hear her tell him, as she had before he left her, that her "dreamings had come true, the brightest and the best." But it was Betty instead of Consuello who answered his call.
"Conny is at the studio," Betty said. "She was called there unexpectedly concerning something about her new picture."
"Did she tell you anything before she left?" he asked.
Betty laughed.
"She told me everything," she replied.
"And is she happy?" he asked.
"Happier than I have ever seen her," Betty assured him. "I'll tell her that you called."
"That I called and that I——" he stopped himself.
"Love her," Betty finished for him.
"More and more every minute," he said, not to be abashed by Betty's good natured presumptuousness.
But whenever throughout the day his thoughts of Consuello and their great love brought him happiness, the haunting realization that his mother still clung to her prejudice against her occupation wore upon him. He had gone to his room after she had left him the night before and at breakfast there hadbeen a strained effort by both of them to avoid recalling the cause for her distress. He had pleaded and begged her so often to overcome her intolerant dislike for Consuello that he was beginning to fear he would never be able to win her over. Not for much longer, he realized, could he keep his mother's feelings against her from Consuello.
Late in the afternoon, when the clatter of the telegraph instruments and the typewriter had lulled, and tired men lounged, squatted on desks and tilted back in chairs in the local room discussing the events of the day, John and Brennan were summoned to the publisher's private office. There they were confronted by P. Q. and the "chief," the managing editor and the news editor, the quartet often referred to by the reporters as the "brain trust." There John and Brennan received checks for $500 each and were informed that their salaries had been doubled, the $500 being a bonus for their work in exposing the Gibson-Cummings plot.
On his way home John decided to make one final effort to change his mother's attitude toward Consuello. He planned it all very carefully. First he would tell her of how his salary had been doubled and then he would turn over to her the bonus check to be banked. Then he would take her in his arms and beg her to listen while he told her of the lovebetween him and Consuello, whom he was to meet later in the evening.
He was absorbed in thinking of everything he would say to his mother when he got off the street car at the corner and walked toward his home. It was not until he was within a quarter of a block from his home when he saw something that brought him to a sharp halt. Scarcely able to believe what was before his eyes, he stood stock-still for a moment and his worry left him like a weight had been lifted from his soul.
On the sidewalk was Mrs. Sprockett with the lost Alma clasped in her arms. Mother and daughter were alternately laughing and crying and kissing each other. Near them stood Mrs. Sprockett's husband, bouncing the Sprockett baby in his arms and smiling and nodding his head to Alma whenever her face showed to him from her mother's embrace.
And a few feet from the re-united mother and her daughter were Consuello and his mother! Mrs. Gallant was smiling and patting Consuello's hand, which she held in both her own!
Wondering what had happened to bring about such a happy scene, John strode toward it, smiling his happiest. He was about to speak when Mrs. Sprockett, allowing Alma to go to her father, grasped Consuello's handand holding it tight against her breast, cried softly:
"My dear, my dear, oh, what you have done for us! My dear, my dear."
He turned to his mother for an explanation.
"Consuello brought Alma back," Mrs. Gallant said. Then, lifting her face to kiss him, she whispered, "Forgive me, my boy, for my unkindness to her and to you."
She turned to Consuello.
"Come, my dear," she said, "you must have dinner with us."
Mrs. Sprockett hurried after her husband, who had started toward their home with the baby on one arm and the other around Alma's shoulders. John took Consuello's hand and whispered to her, "You wonderful, wonderful girl."
Inside, while Mrs. Gallant rearranged the dinner table and prepared portions for three instead of two, she related to him what had occurred.
"On the way to the studio this morning," she said, "I bought a copy of your paper to read what you had written about—about what happened last night. I saw in the paper the photograph of this girl who was missing and, just by chance, I noticed the address of her home and realized it must be close to your own. For that reason, I suppose, I gave thepicture more than a passing glance, although I thought little of it.
"I had no sooner arrived at the studio than this girl came running up to me and begged me to help her become a motion picture actress. Because the picture was still fresh in my mind I recognized her, although it was some time before I got her to admit that she had run away from home. I talked to her and told her what a mistake she had made and finally she said that, if I wanted her to, she would return home. So I brought her home and, truly, you would think I had done something wonderful by the way your mother and Mrs. Sprockett thanked me."
"You did," he said, realizing that by her act of bringing home the runaway Alma she had, unknowingly, won his mother to her.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because everything you do, everything about you is wonderful," he said, justifying himself for the evasion by knowing that his answer was truthful, at least.
* * * * *
In his imagination John enjoyed picturing the four principal streets of Los Angeles—Broadway, Spring, Main and Hill—as different types of girls much in the same way that he looked upon houses, particularly old ones, as people.
Broadway he pictured as the ultra-modern girl, gay, sparkling, witty, brilliant, temperamental; busily enjoying every minute of life; clad always in the most down-to-the-moment styles. He imagined her as popular, colorful, a wonderful companion for a happy, festive mood; a street that looked upon her companion streets as a debutante looks upon her older sisters.
Her faults he placed as tempestuous, born of an excess of nervous energy; a desire to stay up too late and keep others up with her; an insatiable love for beautiful, costly things; a super-abundance of light-heartedness and a touch of light-headedness and a spirit of utter irresponsibility.
A tempting street, a flirting street, almost a flapper street.
Hill street he thought of as older, quieter, more thoughtful and sedate; a book-loving, home-loving sort of a girl; mildly reproving but secretly admiring her sister street, Broadway. She took pride, he thought, in Pershing Square, a restful spot in the roar of the downtown thoroughfares that was like a cool hand on a fevered brow, a kind thought for others, a touch of unselfishness.
A steady, calm, sweet girl; the kind of a girl whom everyone knows would make a wonderful wife and mother, but whom few ever marry.One to turn to in trouble, to rely upon and to always find ready to serve; less popular than her companion streets, gentler, less strident.
A beautiful girl in church on Sunday mornings, but a wallflower at a dance.
Main street was the girl of old Los Angeles, the daughter of the dons, dark-eyed, mysterious, quaintly and languidly entrancing, he pictured her always with a rose in her midnight-black hair, perhaps a black lace fan dangling at her wrist; wearing the dress of other days with shining black beads and flounces and trinkets—scorned by Miss Broadway as so much tinsel—conceding only her rouge and powder to modernism.
Haughtily proud of her origin, pointing to her birthplace—the Plaza—in its shabby, tumbled-down setting as the birthplace of the city. A girl speaking Spanish, softly and beautifully, and knowing instinctively the steps of the bewitching La Jota.
A hint of Carmen; a romantic girl. A girl for a stroll in the moonlight and a kiss upon taunting lips.
And Spring street!
She had a touch of each of her companions, Broadway's brilliant beauty; Hill street's charming character and Main street's pride of ancestry. And yet so different from them all!
An independent girl, versatile and elusive; tasting of life deeper than her companions; with rich men of the world lovers. Sophisticated, whole-hearted, generous; regretting with those who loved her the passing of the days when she held her arms open to bon vivants and epicures.
A chic girl whom you thought of as having a past. An adventurous girl, counting among those who were her followers a host of varied characters from Le Compte Davis, the bibliophile lawyer, chuckling over Schopenhauer's pessimism between hours of study over his law books, to Barney Oldfield, the racing driver, who deserted her to become a manufacturer; Jim Jeffries, former world's heavyweight pugilist, who was her companion in his fame and who left her to become a rancher; and Al Levy, who wined her and dined her in his cafe.
All this musing John related to Consuello in the wonderfully happy evenings that followed Mrs. Gallant's conversion from disliking to loving the girl he adored.
He told her he could never decide which of the four he liked best. He said sometimes Broadway had shaken her bobbed curls at him, smiling and bright, pretty and stylish, and he was captivated. Then, perhaps, a little remorseful that he had pursued so fleeting abeauty as Broadway, he had turned to Hill street to be comforted by her soundness and to tell her, in his heart, that she was a "real" girl, so much more worth-while than her light-hearted sister, who wanted to be going and going all the time.
And nights, when he felt a longing for the stories of the old days, or, perhaps, to see the intriguing shadows of her dark eyes, he visited Main street, wandering away at times into Chinatown, clinging like a faithful servant to the feet of the daughter of the dons.
When he had tired of all three, Broadway, Hill and Main, he told her, he had turned to Spring street and found her ever alluring and interesting. It was there, in George Blake's gymnasium, that he had trained for the bout at Vernon and it was there that "Gink" Cummings had held sway, manipulating Gibson like a puppet, ruling with an iron hand, ordering his gangsters to "bash" whoever opposed him and collecting his ill-gotten tributes.
"Do you remember," she asked, "that day we met and how when you said you were frightened and embarrassed I told you that I had read stories of reporters who never knew fear and that in plays and books the reporter always did the bravest things?"
He smiled back to her.
"And I told you that it was like a story ora play when you rescued me from the servant who had asked me to leave?" he added. "I told you then that you were a beautiful heroine and pointed out Gibson to you as the villain."
"And you said that in books and plays dreams came true and when I asked you what dream you wished to come true you said, 'A rather silly, hopeless, golden sort of dream—a dream of meeting you again,'" she supplemented.
"A dream that came true far more wonderfully than I ever hoped it would," he said.
They were beside her open casement window. It was a warm, bright Sunday morning and in a few minutes they would leave to meet his mother for the long-deferred visit to the home of Consuello's parents.
"There have been stories of all kinds, told and untold, about Spring street," he said, "but do you know the one I like best?"
She shook her head.
"The story you told to me of how it received its name," he said. "And do you know why?"
Again she shook her head.
"Because you are to me 'Mi Primavera'—My Springtime."
They entered the waiting automobile to be whirled through the city and out to theromantic hacienda where the languorous past so strangely and sweetly blended with the vital present and the throbbing promise of a future filled with love and life together.
The motor swung around a corner and into a throbbing thoroughfare down the long, crowded course of which was pictured in an almost perpetual perspective panorama the rushing torrent, the back-wash, the undertow, the placid pools and the spectators upon the banks of the gigantic river of human endeavor.
Through the cinema of John Gallant's mind there swept a thought that here was presented a prophecy and a promise. Hand in hand they would meet whatever the coming days might bring—toil, failure, happiness, success. Love was the magic wand that made them all as one.
Steadily he clasped her warm, trusting fingers as they nestled in his palm.
"We are starting down our Spring street, Mi Primavera," he said.
And as she looked up into his ardent eyes he knew that all his fondest dreams were coming true.
THE END.