The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Carleton CaseThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Carleton CaseAuthor: Ellery H. ClarkIllustrator: George BrehmRelease date: January 22, 2011 [eBook #35038]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CARLETON CASE ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Carleton CaseAuthor: Ellery H. ClarkIllustrator: George BrehmRelease date: January 22, 2011 [eBook #35038]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)
Title: The Carleton Case
Author: Ellery H. ClarkIllustrator: George Brehm
Author: Ellery H. Clark
Illustrator: George Brehm
Release date: January 22, 2011 [eBook #35038]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by D Alexander and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file wasproduced from images generously made available by TheInternet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CARLETON CASE ***
TheCarleton CaseByELLERY H. CLARKAuthor of “Loaded Dice,” Etc.Illustrated byGEORGE BREHMA. L. BURT COMPANYPUBLISHERS::NEW YORK
ByELLERY H. CLARK
Author of “Loaded Dice,” Etc.
Illustrated byGEORGE BREHM
A. L. BURT COMPANYPUBLISHERS::NEW YORK
Copyright 1910The Bobbs-Merrill Company
“The girl who knelt upon the grass.”“The girl who knelt upon the grass.”—Page29
To My FriendsMR. AND MRS. H. DENTON WHITE
I.Doctor Helmar Visits the Birches1II.Inquiring Friends13III.The Prodigal Son34IV.A Fool and His Money57V.A Question of Honor78VI.Death Comes109VII.A Parting128VIII.Temptation139IX.Three Years Later149X.The Birches Again173XI.The Events of an Evening191XII.The Yellow Streak221XIII.Vaughan Doubts239XIV.The Quest Of Truth267XV.Murder Will Out280XVI.The Family Name302XVII.In the Balance316XVIII.Reparation331
“Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright.”Psalm xxxvii.
“Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright.”
Psalm xxxvii.
In Doctor Morrison’s breakfast-room the curtains were drawn back, and the windows stood wide open, letting in a flood of warm June sunshine, and filling the whole room with the fragrance of the soft June air. Even into the streets of the city, restricted and shut in, something of the freshness and beauty of the summer morning had managed to make their way, and to Franz Helmar, seated alone at the breakfast table, listening to the chatter of the sparrows and the cooing of the pigeons on theroofs outside, there came suddenly a sense of irritation at the monotony of dingy sidewalk and dusty street, of house after house of brick varied only by house after house of stone.
Irresistibly, there crept over him the whimsical fancy that he would like to see the whole vast city at one stroke fade and vanish completely before his eyes, and in its place behold once more hill and valley, river and plain; all the wide and boundless freedom of the country; the splendid, sunlit glory of out-of-doors.
Suddenly, across the current of his musing, there sounded once again the sharp, insistent ringing of the telephone, scattering all his day-dreams into flight, and for the moment he paused, his coffee-cup suspended in mid air, the better to listen to the doctor’s voice in the hall outside.
“Yes, this is Doctor Morrison,” he heard in the doctor’s sharp, alert, yet not unpleasant tones, his “professional” voice, and then, pitched in a lower key, far more intimate and cordial, he heard at broken intervals, “Ah, yes, good morning—I’m sorry to hear that—No, I’m afraid I can’t myself; not this morning, anyway—No, but I can send mycolleague, Doctor Helmar—Oh, perfectly, no doubt of that; this is the day of young men, you know—All right—Eight-fifteen, South—All right; good-by,” and then the click of the receiver, and the doctor himself reëntered the room.
Doctor Morrison was a slender, wiry, middle-aged little man, with a quick, nervous manner, and a face pleasantly keen and inquisitive, clean-shaven, save for a little sandy mustache, and with hair—what was left of it—of the same color. Professionally, he ranked among the first half-dozen practitioners in the city. He was an autocrat in demanding obedience from his patients, and a very martinet in insisting that his rules should be obeyed, while he himself, in private life, with the most delightful inconsistency, contrived successfully to break them all. Cocktails he absolutely forbade—and drank them with infinite relish. Tobacco he denounced as one of the curses of modern life—and peacefully smoked cigarettes innumerable. Eight hours sleep he declared to be a necessity—and himself sat up until all hours of the night and morning. In him you met a doctor stern and awe-inspiring—terrifying,even—until you came to know him, and then, shorn of his “professional” voice and manner, you came suddenly upon a man, gentle-hearted, humane and kind.
Seating himself, he glanced up at Helmar, talking jerkily over his eggs and toast, in his absence now grown somewhat discouraged looking and cold.
“A job for you, Franz,” he said, “Edward Carleton—the man who owns that big place out at Eversley—Oaks? Beeches? What is the name? Some kind of tree. Birches. That’s it. Birches. Funny name to give a place, anyway. Well, the old man’s laid up with a cold. That was his brother who telephoned. Henry Carleton, you know, the bank man. He wanted me to come out at once, and I told him I couldn’t, but that I’d send you instead.—Train leaves South Station at eight-fifteen. So you’ve plenty of time. I’ll look after Colonel Wentworth myself, and drop in to see Mrs. Brooks. Nothing else, is there?”
Helmar shook his head. “No, that’s all,” he answered, “and I’m mighty glad to trade. For one thing, I was just thinking how the country wouldlook to-day, and for another, I’d like to meet old Mr. Carleton. I knew Jack Carleton very well when we were in college—as well as I knew anyone, really. So I should enjoy meeting his father.”
Doctor Morrison paused a moment. He was rather a well-advised man on social affairs. ”JackCarleton,” he repeated, “some trouble there somewhere, isn’t there? Isn’t he the one who doesn’t live at home?”
“Yes,” Helmar assented, “he’s the one. The trouble’s all between him and Henry, I believe. Uncle and nephew—it’s a queer combination for a family row. But I guess it’s a case where the old gentleman’s on the best of terms with both of them, and hardly feels like taking sides. And so, since Henry Carleton and Jack can’t get along together, why, it’s Henry that’s rather got the inside track. He always did live at The Birches, you know, even before his wife died. And then there’s his little girl—I understand that Edward Carleton is most devoted to her, and for the matter of that, that Jack is too. And she’s awfully fond of him, and of the old gentleman. Likes them fully asmuch as she does her father, from what I hear. But it’s Jack and his uncle that can’t agree. Never could, I guess. Maybe Jack’s a bit more jealous than he ought to be. Anyway, it was all right while he was in college—he wasn’t home a great deal then—but after he graduated, I understand things began to get a little raw, so he quit and branched out for himself.”
Doctor Morrison nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I see. I thought I recalled something of the sort,” and after a little pause, he added, “I suppose, as you intimate, it isn’t very hard to guess where the trouble lies, either. I’m afraid, Helmar, there’s something rather rattle-brained about your friend. An attractive looking fellow enough, though, as I remember him, but I’m afraid without much of his uncle’s ability, or, for that matter, of his character, either.”
Helmar looked thoughtful. “Well,” he began doubtfully, “I don’t really know. But somehow I think—”
Doctor Morrison cut him short. After the fashionof many clever men, he was possessed of an idea, and was going to deliver himself of it. Until he had done so, the privilege of the floor was his, and his alone. “I look upon Henry Carleton,” he continued, a little sententiously, “as one of our coming men. Some day he is sure to be regarded as one of the really solid men of the city; practically, I suppose he is that now. They tell me that he’s exceedingly able, and that he’s amassed a great deal of money of his own; and then they say he has all his brother’s fortune behind him, too. The old gentleman made his money away back in the days of the clipper ships, and the Chinese trade. One of the old time merchants, Edward Carleton was, shrewd and thrifty and far-seeing, and I guess Henry is all that his brother ever was, and more besides. And then he’s interested in so many other things. You know what a thorough musician he is, and what a lot he does to help the younger singers along. And confound it all, the man’s literary, too. Writes, you know, and presides at anniversaries and dedications and all thatsort of thing. Oh, he’s one of our leading men, Helmar. Able, and public-spirited, and upright. I wish we had a hundred more like him.”
Helmar had listened patiently, but the thoughtful expression had not left his face. “Yes,” he assented at last, though scarcely with enthusiasm. “Yes, I suppose so. Certainly I never knew anybody more generally looked up to than Henry Carleton seems to be. And yet—it’s queer about him and Jack, because Jack’s a good fellow, too. In a different way, perhaps. I suppose he does lack balance; but there’s something awfully human and likeable about him, just the same. But I’m prejudiced in his favor, I’ll admit; I used to know him so well.”
He rose as he spoke, and started to leave the room; then paused a moment on the threshold, throwing a backward glance over his shoulder.
“Come on, Rex,” he called, and at the sound of his voice there came slowly from beneath the breakfast table a little brown and white spaniel, who first stopped leisurely to stretch himself, next shook his slender body mightily as if to get himselfthoroughly awake, and finally trotted briskly away at Helmar’s heels. Then, outside in the hall, as he saw his master reach for his hat and bag, he became suddenly greatly excited, springing to and fro with quick, nervous bounds, his mouth open, his little red tongue hanging out, his brown eyes glowing, finally standing straight up on his hind legs, and waving his fore paws frantically, as in supplication. Helmar, observing him, held up a warning finger, and instantly the dog again subsided, sitting quietly down on his haunches, his head cocked inquiringly to one side, his brown eyes, now grown a trifle anxious, fixed on his master’s face, uncertain of his fate. Helmar looked gravely down at him, a twinkle in his eye, but speaking with assumed regret. “No,” he said slowly, “no, I guess not, sir. It’s a long ways for a little dog, and he might not behave himself, either. He might bark—he might run away—he might chase squirrels, even—he might be a bad, bad dog.” Now the little dog’s big, soft eyes looked very sorrowful, as if they were not far from tears; the head and ears drooped pathetically, the tail limp,discouraged and lifeless, every line of his body expressing the idea that for little dogs it was a very hard, a very sad, a very unkind world. Then suddenly he raised his head. Surely, even as he had despaired, a change had come; surely the admonishing finger was being lowered, and his master’s voice was speaking to him in the tones he loved best to hear. “But,” Helmar was slowly emphasizing, “seeing that on the whole you’re a pretty good little dog, perhaps if you’ll give me your word—your solemn word—to behave, and be a gentleman, why, I think—” his voice quickened perceptibly to a more encouraging tone—“I think, sir, I might let you go. Do you want to go, sir? Do you want to go?”
There was no mistaking the little dog’s answer. With one bound he hurled himself headlong like a miniature catapult against the solid oak of the door, then stood motionless, quivering with excitement, his tail waving jauntily, like a plume, over his back, giving vent to short, sharp barks of joyful impatience. It was a great world for little dogs, after all; a world of blue sky and long, waving grass, aworld of running brooks and sunshine, a world perhaps of squirrels even. Helmar, regarding him, laughed. “Come on, then,” he cried, and in a moment the door had closed behind them.
The town clock was striking nine as Helmar got off the train at Eversley, walked up the station lane, and turned into the narrow footpath leading straight across the half mile of broad green meadow that lay between the station and The Birches. Rapidly and steadily his tall figure strode along, from time to time with a half smile on his dark, clean-shaven face, as he watched the little spaniel tearing on far ahead of him, in a very frenzy of delighted freedom, racing and circling desperately here and there in vain pursuit of butterfly and bird.
To the farther edge of the meadow they came. There Helmar, clearing the low rail fence at a bound, for a moment hesitated as he sought to recall Doctor Morrison’s directions, then turned sharp to the right along the shady country road; proceeding at first uncertainly, as on a journey into unknown country, then more confidently, as one by one he came on the landmarks the doctor had foretold:first the massive wall of stone and concrete that marked the limits of the Carleton boundaries, then grove after grove of the silver birches that had gained the place its name, and finally, almost before he expected it, a break in the high lilac hedge, a long, winding drive, green lawns shaded by towering elms, gardens fragrant with flowers, and in the background, just pleasantly distant from the road, the huge, rambling, many-chimneyed old house itself—Edward Carleton’s home.
“Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.”Howell.
“Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it.”
Howell.
Helmar had covered perhaps half the distance to the house, when ahead of him he caught sight of a little girl, sitting cross-legged under the shade of one of the big elms, her head bent low over the buttercup wreath she was weaving, and at her side a young woman—from her dress, evidently the child’s nurse or companion—sitting with her back against the tree, deep buried in her book. At the sound of Helmar’s footsteps the child glanced up quickly, and catching sight of the spaniel advancing manfully with head in air, and tail wagging in friendliest of greetings, she scrambled to her feet, and tossing her half-finished wreath aside, came flying across the lawn to meet him. Evidently with both it was a case of love at firstsight, for the child stooped and picked the dog up bodily in her arms, pressing his face to hers, and calling him by the hundred pet names which spring so readily to the lips of any true woman—whatever her age. “Oh, you dear,” she cried softly, “you darling; aren’t you a pretty dog!” while the spaniel lay quietly in her arms, only striving to lick her face with his little red tongue. Then, as Helmar approached, she looked up. “Isn’t he a beauty!” she said. “Does he belong to you?”
Helmar stood smiling down at her, thinking that unconsciously she made a very pretty picture with the spaniel’s head pressed against her cheek. She was a dainty little fairy, slender and graceful, dressed in an airy frock of white muslin, with a broad sash of blue ribbon, her straw hat dangling neglected down her back, her big, serious dark eyes gazing solemnly up into his. He nodded in answer. “Yes, he belongs to me,” he said, “but do you suppose you could look after him while I go in to see your uncle?”
The little girl nodded in eager assent. “Oh, yes, indeed,” she cried. “I’ll take care of him. I’llgive him my buttercup wreath. Come now, you darling, come with me,” and with the spaniel still in her arms, she walked back toward the shelter of the big elm.
At Helmar’s nearer approach, the child’s nurse, too, had risen, laying aside her book, and as he passed, naturally enough their glances met—for an instant only—and then Helmar again strode along upon his way, carrying with him the impression of a charming face, and a most alluring smile.
What was there, he wondered, about the girl, that was so vaguely disquieting? She was dressed quietly enough in simple black, with a little snugly-fitting white apron, reaching, by mere chance, just to the height of her bosom, and held in place by smart little shoulder-straps, about it all a daintily vague impression of ribbon and lace. Her figure, indeed, was perfect; deliciously rounded; and the closely-fitting dress seemed to bring out, with significant emphasis, all the beauty of her form. Her face, moreover, was more striking still; her pretty blonde hair appeared to curl so naturally as utterlyto defy the mode of convention; her big blue eyes drooped modestly as soon as she had become conscious of his gaze, just long enough to show the heavy fringed eyelashes above, and then almost as quickly glanced up again; there had been a flush of rose in her cheeks, and a deeper scarlet on the lips that had smiled at him. Perhaps it was in the smile itself—slow, langourous, inviting—that the whole woman had seemed suddenly to lie revealed; and scarcely able as yet to define it, Helmar felt that the girl’s seeming simplicity was the dangerous charm of the highest art, and that he had gazed on the guile of the serpent, and not on the innocence of the dove.
Puzzling a little as he walked along, he cast back in his mind to chance words that from time to time had fallen haphazard from Jack Carleton’s lips, and finally, in one sudden flash of memory, he came upon the clue. “Jeanne,” he said to himself, half aloud, “of course; that’s who it is; Jeanne.” Then, falling back unconsciously into the slang of college days, he added, “and she is a peach, too; Jack told the truth for once; no wonder he had his littleaffair.” And finally, as he mounted the steps of the broad piazza, he spoke again. “But pretty risky fun,” he muttered, “playing with fire, all right; there are some women in the world that a man wants to steer clear of, and I should put that girl down for one of them.”
He rang the bell, and almost immediately there appeared in answer a butler, thin, pale, and of uncertain age, but even to Helmar’s unpractised eye superlatively autocratic, hopelessly correct. He seemed, indeed, to be not so much a human being as the living embodiment of all known rules of social etiquette, condensed, as it were, into the final perfect expression of a type, before whom and whose vast store of knowledge one could only bow, humbly praying that the mistakes of honest ignorance might graciously be forgiven. Helmar, following in his wake, felt properly sensible of the honor done him, as he was ushered up the broad, winding staircase to the entrance of the big square room at the front of the house, where his guide stopped, and most decorously knocked. In answer a great voice called lustily, “Come in!” and the butler promptlystepped to one side. “Mr. Carleton, sir,” he observed, “left orders that you were to be admitted at once,” and thereupon, opening the door, he stood respectfully back, and as Helmar entered, closed it softly behind him.
Edward Carleton, attired in an old-fashioned quilted dressing-gown, was sitting up, reading, in his huge, high, square bed, his back propped with pillows innumerable. Well upward of seventy, he looked strong and active still; gaunt, with a wrinkled, weather-beaten face, a great bushy square-cut gray beard, and fiercely tufted eyebrows, while in the eyes beneath them, as he slowly took off his horn-rimmed spectacles and glanced up at his visitor, Helmar caught an expression of lurking, humorous kindliness that put him at once in mind of Jack Carleton himself.
As Helmar advanced, the old man reached out a gnarled and sinewy hand. “Good morning, sir,” he said pleasantly, “I take it that you’re Doctor Morrison’s young man.”
Helmar, as he took the proffered hand, smiled to himself at the old-fashioned quaintness of thephrase. “Yes, sir,” he answered, “that’s my professional title. In private life I’m Franz Helmar, and in either capacity very much at your service.”
Edward Carleton nodded. “Thank you,” he answered courteously, and then, more abruptly, “you think you’ve come out here to see a sick man, Doctor, but you haven’t. Just a bit of a chill—I managed to let myself get caught in that shower yesterday afternoon—and maybe a little fever with it. But I’m not sick. It’s all Henry’s nonsense. Just because he’s twenty years younger than I am, he has to look after me as if I were a baby.”
He spoke with assumed indignation, yet Helmar could detect in his tone a note of satisfaction at being so well cared for; and when he answered him, he aimed to fall in with the old man’s mood.
“Why, I think myself that I’m out here under false pretenses,” he said good-humoredly, “you don’t look at all like an invalid to me; but still the ounce of prevention, you know, it never does any harm. So many things nowadays start with a cold. It’s just as well to step right in and stop them before they get a hold on us. Now, then, we’ll see wherewe are, at any rate,” and as he spoke, he deftly slipped the little temperature tube under Edward Carleton’s tongue, and closed his fingers lightly on the lean brown wrist. A minute or two passed in silence, the old man’s eyes fixed on Helmar’s face with the scrutinizing interest of the patient who awaits the professional verdict. Then Helmar withdrew the tube, studied it an instant, nodded as if satisfied, asked a few questions, and then hastened to give his opinion.
“Oh, well,” he said reassuringly, “this is all right. We’ll fix you up, Mr. Carleton. Just a little tonic, and a few days’ rest, and you’ll be as good as new; better than new, really, because a day or two off is a benefit to anybody, at any time. You’d better stay in bed, though, to-day, I think; and personally I rather envy you. I see you have good company.”
He pointed as he spoke, to the three stout little volumes that lay by Mr. Carleton’s side.Roderick Randomwas the first;Tom Jones, the second;Tristram Shandy, the third. Their owner nodded in pleased assent.
“Yes, indeed,” he answered, “they’ll last me through the day, all right. I never get tired of them, Doctor. I was just reading, when you came in, how Tom Bowling came to see the old curmudgeon who was about to die. ‘So, old gentleman,’ he says, ‘you’re bound for the other shore, I see, but in my opinion most damnably ill-provided for the voyage’; and later on, after the old fellow’s dead, he tells some one, that asks after him, that they might look for him ‘somewhere about the latitude of hell.’ There’s good, sound, human nature for you. Smollett knew his sailors, and the rest of his world, too, and enjoyed them both, I imagine. And he wasn’t a hypocrite; that’s what I like most about him. He saw things as they were.”
Helmar smiled. “I agree with you,” he answered, “but the modern school of readers doesn’t care for him, just the same. He’s either too simple for them, or too coarse; I don’t know which.”
Edward Carleton looked his scorn. “Modern school!” he ejaculated. “Let me tell you, sir, I have but very little opinion of your modern school,writers or readers either. But Henry stands up for ’em, and brings ’em all to me to read. Good Lord above, the different kinds! There’s some that tell you whether John Smith had one egg for breakfast, or two, and whether either of ’em was bad, and if it was, what John Smith said to his wife, and what she said to him—and Henry claims those books are modern classics. Then he’s got another lot—romantic school, I believe they are—all dashing cavaliers and lovely ladies and flashing swords and general moonshine—stuff about fit for idiots and invalids; and last of all—” he glared at Helmar as if he were the unfortunate embodiment of all the literary sins of the day day—“he’s got a crowd—Heaven knows whathecalls ’em; the pig-sty school’smyname—that seem to be having a regular game; trying to see which can write the dirtiest book, and yet have it stop just enough short of the line so they can manage to get it published without the danger of having it suppressed. And the mean, hypocritical excuses they make—they’re always teaching a moral lesson, you know, or something like that. It makes me sick,sir; it makes me sick; and I don’t hesitate to tell Henry so, either.”
Helmar nodded assentingly, and yet, with a twinkle in his eye, he could not resist the temptation to reach forward and pick up from the bed the volume of Sterne. “I agree with a great deal of what you say, sir,” he answered, “especially the latter part, and yet—it isn’t wholly a modern vice. There was old Rabelais, for instance, and his imitators, and evenTristramhere I suppose you could hardly recommend for a Sunday-school.”
Edward Carleton was no casuist. He loved to fight, but he always fought fair. “I grant it,” he answered quickly; “Laurence Sterne did have a little sneaking peep-hole way with him at times—he was modern there—but you can forgive a great deal to the man who gave us Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim. And then, he isn’t a fair example; he was a kind of literary exception to all rules; but take Smollett or Henry Fielding. They struck straight out from the shoulder, every time. What they meant, they said. They painted vice, I grant you, but they painted her naked and repulsive, asshe should be, and that’s fair enough; you can go back to your Aristotle for that, Doctor. But they didn’t disguise her, sir; they didn’t call her something that she never was and never could be; and these modern swine, they dress out vice in silks and satins, and make you believe she’s the most beautiful thing in the world—so beautiful that no man can be happy unless he may possess her; and there’s no Henry Fielding to come along with his big, scornful laugh, and strip her of all her frippery and finery, and show you the stark, naked sin that lies there underneath it all. Oh, I’m right, Doctor, and I’m always telling Henry so, but I can’t convince him. He says it’s art, whatever that means, and he’s all for the modern school.”
Helmar rose, smiling. “Youareright, I believe,” he said heartily, “and if we all read more of the old worthies, and less of this flood of modern trash, we’d do better, beyond a doubt. Well, I must get my train, I suppose. I’m going to leave the medicine with your butler; I’ll give him full directions; and you’ll be all right, without any question. If you should want anything, telephone DoctorMorrison or me at once. I’m very glad to have had the chance of meeting you, sir. Oh, and there was one other thing I meant to tell you: I knew your son Jack very well in college. We used to be the best of friends.”
Edward Carleton looked up quickly, but without speaking, and when at last he did so, there was a new note of cordiality in his tone. “You knew Jack,” he repeated, “why, I’m glad to hear that, I’m sure. I’m very fond of my boy, Doctor. Boy? He’s a man now, though I can never seem to realize it. He’s only a little boy to me still, for all his six feet and his forty inches around the chest. Do you ever see him nowadays, Doctor?”
Helmar nodded. “Yes, indeed,” he answered readily, “not very often, of course. We’re in different lines of work, and both busy, I guess. But I run across him every once in a while. And this week we’re going to dine together. Jack and I and another fellow who was in our class—a sort of small reunion, to celebrate being five years out of college. He’ll be interested to know I’ve been out here.”
The old man nodded, gazing straight before him. “Doctor,” he asked suddenly, with apparent irrelevance, “you took my pulse to-day. What did you think of my heart?”
Helmar, surprised, parried with the clumsiness of a man not fond of deception. “Why,” he evaded, “I wouldn’t worry about that. All you have is a cold. You’ve got a pretty good heart, I think. We none of us grow any younger, though. That’s sure.”
Edward Carleton smiled a little grimly. “Thanks,” he said, “sometimes a patient knows more about himself than a doctor thinks he does. And I suppose I could guess pretty well what certain things mean. Never mind, though. As you say, we don’t grow any younger, more’s the pity.”
Both were silent, Helmar pausing a moment, uncertainly, with one hand on the knob of the door. Then the old man glanced up at him, with a smile genial and friendly, if a trifle wistful. “Good-by, Doctor,” he said courteously, “thank you for your interest. And tell Jack he’s always welcome, whenever he finds time to run out. The Birches isalways his home, and his room stands ready for him—always.”
Five minutes later Helmar again passed down the broad steps of the piazza into the cheerful, dazzling sunlight. The little girl and her nurse were still seated under the shade of the big elm, and at once the spaniel, breaking away from his new friends, came tearing across the lawn to his master, ruthlessly scattering buttercups at every bound. With a laugh Helmar picked him up in his arms, and took him back to make his proper farewells. For the little girl the final moment of parting was a hard one, and she gazed longingly at her playmate, as though unwilling to have him go. Her nurse, observing her, shook her head in reproof. “Don’t be so foolish, Miss Rose,” she chided, “he’s only a little dog; you mustn’t be silly;” then, suddenly, she looked squarely at Helmar. “Will you excuse me, please,” she said softly, “but I know that you’re a friend of Mr. Jack’s. Would you tell me where a letter would reach him?”
Helmar eyed her keenly, and before his gaze the blue eyes dropped, and this time were not raisedagain. A faint flush stole into her cheeks. Helmar, in his turn, looked away. “Yes,” he answered shortly, “Mayflower Club, City, is his present address.”
He had his reward. At once the girl’s eyes were raised again, and her look sought his with the same smile that he had seen before. It was not a smile of the lips alone, but of the eyes as well, and a certain nameless something that flashed from still deeper within, a piquant frankness, a dangerous friendliness. Again he started to turn away, then stopped; his eyes, though half against his will, still seeking hers.
On the silence broke in the voice of the little girl. “Is it Cousin Jack?” she demanded, “do you know Cousin Jack?” And as Helmar nodded, she cried, “I wish you’d tell him to come out and see me. He hasn’t been here for an awfully long time. Will you tell him, please?”
Helmar promised, and with a glance at his watch, took a hasty leave. Thoughtfully enough he made his way back to the station, and yet, before he reached it, one meeting more was destined to givehim food for further meditation. Nearing the entrance to the station lane, the vigorous and friendly bark of his faithful body-guard struck suddenly on his ear, and turning the corner, he paused in quick surprise at the sight of the girl who knelt upon the grass, parasol, hat and gloves tossed carelessly aside, holding the spaniel’s head imprisoned caressingly between her dainty hands, and talking to him with mock severity the while. As she glanced up, perceiving Helmar, she somewhat hastily arose, and as he approached, smilingly extended her hand in greeting.
Very attractive, indeed, she looked. Fashionably dressed, yet simply, as well; young—she could scarcely have been over twenty, at the most—and with a face that one could hardly choose but like at once—the clear-cut, regular features, the honest, straightforward brown eyes, the pretty color in the dimpled cheeks, the firm little chin, the laughing, yet sensitive mouth. One liked too the erectness of her slender figure, and the well-poised head, crowned with its masses of soft brown hair. If one had been ungracious enough to venture a criticism, thethought might have come that she shared, perhaps, the fault of so many American girls of the well-to-do class, the excusable habit of taking the good things of life too much as a matter of course, of being too easily satisfied with the doings and standards of their own particular class and “set,” of having no real knowledge, and worse still, perhaps, of desiring none, of the great world at large. Yet even if the criticism had been hazarded, the critic must still have been forced to admit that plenty of character showed in the girl’s face, and while of her mere good looks alone there could be no question, in seeming paradox, the more one looked at her the more one forgot her mere prettiness, granting it carelessly enough as something secondary, so much more uncommon and striking were the other qualities written there—strength and sympathy and above all, that holy and beautiful thing before which any man may well stand in reverent admiration—the innate goodness of the true woman, pure in thought and deed.
As he took her hand, Helmar’s face showed hissurprise. “Well, Marjory Graham,” he cried, “who’d have thought of seeing you?”
Laughingly the girl mimicked him. “Why, Franz Helmar,” she said in turn, “you’re not the one to be surprised. You knew I lived in Eversley. But what areyoudoing out here?”
“Old Mr. Carleton,” he answered, “he’s a little under the weather. I ran out to see how he was getting along.”
The girl’s face clouded. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, “he’s such a dear old man. And he’s my father’s greatest friend, you know. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
Helmar shook his head. “No, I think not,” he answered, “he’ll be all right—for this time. And he is a first-class old chap, too. Do you know, I think Jack is awfully like him, in many ways?”
At the words a sudden change came over the girl’s expressive face. For a moment she hesitated, then raised her eyes to his. “Franz,” she said, “how often do you see Jack now?”
Helmar glanced at her quizzically. “Oh,” heanswered, “every once in a while. Not so often as you do, though, I guess.”
He spoke jestingly, but the girl gave him no answering smile, and he hastened to add, “Why, I expect to see him Wednesday night, Marjory, to make arrangements for a little dinner we’re going to have Thursday—Jack and Arthur Vaughan and I. Is there anything I can do?”
The girl colored faintly. “It’s only this,” she said, “and I ought to write to him and not bother you. But when you see Jack, would you mind telling him that I shall be at home Friday evening, if he cares to come out?”
Seemingly, there was more in the words than appeared on the surface, but Helmar, with a certain instinctive chivalry, chose to treat the request with apparent lightness. “Of course I’ll tell him,” he answered, “with all the pleasure in life.”
She looked her gratitude. “Thank you very much, Franz,” she said, “and you will remember, won’t you?”
He nodded reassuringly. “I surely will,” he answered, and as he spoke, the train burst shrieking,around the near-by curve. “Oh, don’t miss it!” she cried. “Thank you, Franz; thank you so much; good-by.”
Breaking into a swift run, Helmar, with the spaniel racing excitedly at his heels, reached the station platform just in time. Boarding the train, and taking a seat far forward in the almost deserted car, he sat for some time in thoughtful silence, and then at last voiced his reflections to the one friend who never betrayed his confidence. “Rex, my boy,” he said slowly, “our friend Jack seems to have achieved the secret of universal popularity.”
The spaniel, listening with head cocked knowingly to one side, gave a sharp, quick bark in reply, and Helmar laughed. “Does that mean you think so, or you don’t think so?” he asked, but the little dog refused further to commit himself, and curling up in his master’s lap, went promptly and comfortably to sleep.
“The pains and penalties of idleness.”Pope.
“The pains and penalties of idleness.”
Pope.
It was after eight o’clock, yet still faintly light out-of-doors, as Jack Carleton left his rooms at the Mayflower Club, and came slowly down the winding staircase, with one hand groping for the railing, as if uncertain of his way.
At first sight he looked extremely well, and in his fashionably-cut street suit of light gray, his tall and well-built figure showed to excellent advantage, though in the five years which had passed since his graduation he had seemingly grown heavier and stouter, and somehow distinctly softer looking, as if the active exercise of former days had come now to be the exception, and not the rule. And this impression, as he paused midway on the stairs to light a cigarette, was still further borne out by theappearance of his face. He was handsome enough still, and his complexion, indeed, from a distance, in contrast with his fair hair and closely-clipped mustache, seemed the perfection of ruddy health; yet the tell-tale spurt of the match, as he held it to his lips, told a far different story. His color, naturally high, was beginning now to be patched with red and white, giving his face a significantly mottled look, and if any further hint had been needed, it was furnished by his eyes, which stared straight ahead of him with a curiously glassy expression. Plainly enough, Jack Carleton was drunk.
Still holding fast to the rail, he accomplished the remainder of his journey in safety; then started a little unsteadily toward the door of the lounging room, stopping short at the entrance, and staring vacantly in at the half dozen figures looming mistily through the haze of smoke. Instantly he was hailed by two or three at once. “Hullo, Jack, what’ll you have?” “Come on in, Jack.” “Make a fourth at bridge, Jack?” Carleton, standing motionless, with one hand fumbling in his pocketfor a match with which to relight his cigarette, still gazed aimlessly and apparently without recognition into the room. “Make a fourth at bridge, Jack?” some one called again sharply, and Carleton, starting, jerkily, but with intense gravity, shook his head. “No, not t’night,” he said slowly, as if settling some matter of immense moment to all concerned, “can’t play t’night; very shorry; got date.” He stood a moment longer; then, half mechanically, as it seemed, turned and slowly walked toward the outer door that led into the street.
With a little exclamation, one of the loungers hastily rose, and followed him out into the hall. Jim Turner was a stock broker, and a most successful one. He was a man of middle age, short, stout, and unattractive looking. He had a round, fat face, pale reddish hair and mustache, small, nondescript, expressionless eyes, a pasty complexion, and white, pudgy hands, which he took pains to have manicured regularly three times a week. He was entirely unimaginative, practical, commonplace—and very successful. He had one favoritemotto; “Look at things as they are, and not as you’d like ’em to be.”
He quickly overtook Carleton—a feat, indeed, not difficult of accomplishment—and laid a detaining hand on his shoulder. “See here, Jack,” he said in a low tone, “I want you to let me sell out some of your things. We get advices that there’s trouble coming—and pretty quickly, too. And by this time you’re really carrying quite a big line. So I guess it wouldn’t do any harm if you began gradually to unload a little. Don’t you think so yourself, Jack?”
Carleton gazed at him from eyes in which there was no understanding. He shook his head slightly. “Don’ want t’sell,” he said at last, “ain’t I ’way ’head th’ game?”
“Oh, sure,” Turner assented. “You’re ahead of the game, all right, but I want to have you stay there. And when things start to go in a top-heavy market, why—they go almighty quick. That’s all. There’s your Suburban Electric, now. That’s had a big rise. Let me sell five hundred of that, anyway. You’ve got a good profit. And you’ll findyou can get out and in again, too. You won’t have any trouble doing that.”
Again Carleton obstinately shook his head. “No,” he said, with an almost childish delight in contradiction, “I don’ get ’ny ’dvices like that. I get ’dvices S’burban ’Lectric’s going to hundred’n fifty. I don’ want t’sell now. Not such fool.”
Turner, seeing the futility of further argument, shrugged his shoulders impassively. “Well, drop in at the office and see me to-morrow, anyway, Jack,” he said.
Carleton nodded. “Sure,” he answered cheerfully, “I’ll be in. Got t’get ’long now,” and he made again for the door.
Turner slowly made his way back into the lounging room. One of the smokers looked up at him with a laugh. “Old Jack’s pretty full, isn’t he?” he said, “growing on him, I should say.”
A second lounger caught up the remark. “Full,” he echoed, “oh, no, not for him. He’s sober as a church now. When he can walk, and see where he’s going, he’s all right. You ought tosee him around the Club here some nights. Talk about raising hell!”
The first man yawned. “Well,” he said slowly, “it’s like lots of other things. It’s all right and good fun for once in a way, but for a steady thing—why, Heaven help the poor devil that gets going it and can’t stop. There isn’t any humor in it then. Nothing jovial, or convivial, or anything else. It’s just simply damnable; that’s what it is. And Jack Carleton’s too good a fellow to go that way. It’s a shame.”
The second man nodded in answer. “That’s right enough,” he assented, “and it’s rough on his old man, too. He’s an awfully good sort, the old chap. And Jack could amount to something, if he wanted to. That’s the bad part. He was never cut out for a soak.”
“Doesn’t he do anything at all?” some one asked.
The first man shook his head. “Not a thing,” he answered. “The old man gives him an allowance, I understand, or else he inherited somethingfrom his mother; I don’t really know which. And Jack’s playing Alcohol to win, I guess, and Suburban Electric for place.” He grinned at his own joke.
The second man turned suddenly to Turner. “Say, Jim, you know everything,” he said; “what about this uncle of Jack’s—this Henry Carleton? I seem to hear a lot about him lately. He’s the whole shooting-match down-town. What sort of man is he, anyway?”
Turner launched a little family of smoke rings into the air, and watched them float upward before he replied. “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered indifferently, “he’s smart as the devil, for one thing. I know that for a fact.”
“Yes, that’s right,” the first man chimed in, “everybody says that. And yet, you know, it’s funny, but there’s always something that strikes me as disagreeable about that man’s looks. He seems so confoundedly self-assertive, and sure of himself, somehow.”
Turner rose to take his departure. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said again. “First we sit here anddamn a man for being a sport, and then we turn around and damn another man because he’s smart, and we don’t like his face. It’s mighty easy to criticize.” He paused a moment, then added, with what for him was almost an excess of feeling, “I’m really sorry about Jack, though. It’s too bad.”
Meantime, once out in the street, the air seemed for the moment to steady Carleton, and he started off briskly enough for the South Station. As he walked along, he pulled a letter from his pocket, read it through carefully, and then, as though striving to recall something that had escaped him, proceeded on his way with a puzzled and dissatisfied expression on his face. “Friday, Friday,” he muttered to himself, “something else, but can’t seem to think what. Guess nothing important. Anyway, can’t think.”
In due time he reached the station, and took his stand opposite the gateway through which the passengers from the incoming Eversley train would pass. There he stood, from time to time absent-mindedly consulting his watch, until at length from a distant rumble and cloud of smoke emerged thebig engine, with flashing headlight and clanging bell, and huge wheels revolving more and more slowly until at length, with one last jerk, the whole train came suddenly to a stand. Then under the arc-light bustled forth the figures of the incoming passengers—first one, then another, then twos and threes, lines, groups—all hurrying, intent and eager, bound for their destination, and restlessly anxious to get there at once, wasting as little time as possible in transit. Scrutinizing them with care, it was not until the very end of the procession was reached that Carleton started suddenly forward. At the same instant the girl discovered him, and came quickly toward him.
Carleton’s masculine eye could hardly have appreciated all the details of her dress, yet the general effect was certainly not lost on him. Knowledge of the name of the dainty gown of blue and white would probably have conveyed no impression to his mind, but the way in which it fitted and the significant emphasis it lent to the graceful lines of the girl’s figure were matters which he viewed with no unappreciative eye. Surveying her critically as sheadvanced, from head to foot, from the hat of simple straw, with its clusters of blue flowers, to the tip of the dainty slipper, with just a glimpse of silken stocking above, he nodded in gracious approval. The girl was certainly looking her best, her pretty hair curling about her forehead in little clustering rings, her face just delicately flushed with color, her blue eyes very coquettish and very sparkling. Doubtless, too, these same practised eyes lost nothing of Carleton’s condition, for it was with a certain easy assurance that she came up to him and slipped her arm familiarly through his with a gentle welcoming pressure, glancing up almost impudently into his face. “Hullo, dear,” she said, “and how’s Jack?”
Carleton looked down at her, an odd mixture of emotions showing in his face; a certain satisfaction, a certain shame, above all, a certain recklessness—the recklessness of the aristocrat who, with a shrug of his shoulders, goes voluntarily out of his class, fascinated beyond his strength, half scornful of himself, and wholly regardless of what the consequences may be.
“Oh, fine, thanks,” he answered absently, and then, as they emerged from the station into the street, he returned the pressure of her arm. “You’re looking very pretty, Jeanne,” he said, “I’m glad I got your note.”
They sauntered slowly up Union Street, the girl chattering vivaciously, and glancing up at Carleton as she talked, with a subtle and flattering attention; Carleton for the most part listening, from time to time nodding or answering in monosyllables. At the up-town crossing they came to a brief irresolute halt. “Well,” said Carleton, “and whash going to be to-night? The river?”
The girl, with a little smile, shook her head. “No,” she answered capriciously, “I’m tired of the river. We’ve done that so often. I want a motor to-night. A nice long ride. We’ll have a beautiful time.”
Carleton doubtfully shook his head. He was in a distinctly contradictory mood. “Nice long ridsh,” he observed, “in nice big motors, damn ’xpensive things for man that’s short money. Motors ’xpensive things; so’s girls.”
The girl laughed, but did not lack the cleverness to see how her point might best be gained. “Are you short of money, really?” she said, with quick sympathy. “Why, you poor old Jack, it’s a shame. We’ll go on the river, then, in a little boat, all snug and nice. You dear boy; you need some one to comfort you,” and the big blue eyes gazed up into his, bold and unashamed.
She had comprehended his mood perfectly. Instantly his tone changed. “No, no,” he answered quickly, “won’t do an’thing of the kind. Got little money left for frens.” He laughed uncertainly. “’F you want motor, you’re going t’ have motor. That’s all there’sh to it. Do an’thing for you, Jeanne.”
She smiled up at him with dangerous sweetness. “You’re so good to me, Jack,” she murmured, and the gentle pressure on his arm was in nowise diminished. “You do everything for me. I only wish sometimes I could do something for you.”
He gazed down at her, all that was weakest and worst in his nature uppermost in his face. “Maybecan,” he said thickly, “maybe can; come on; we’re goin’ get motor now.”
At about the same hour that Carleton had left the Mayflower, farther up-town, in the reception-room at the Press Club, Arthur Vaughan sat waiting for his friend Helmar to return. He was a young man of medium height and build, inclined to be a trifle careless about his dress; his clothes a little threadbare; his brown hair and mustache allowed to grow a little too long; his carelessly knotted tie a good year out of style. Yet his face, looked at more closely, was distinctly good; a face somewhat thin and worn; the mouth and chin nervous, sensitive; the forehead high; the brown eyes straightforward and kindly,—the eyes of a man a little detached from the world about him, a little inclined, on his way through life, unconsciously to pause and dream.
Presently the door opened, and Helmar entered, the expression on his face one of half-humorous disgust. “Same old Jack Carleton,” he said. “He’s not down-stairs, and it’s five minutes of eight. You’re sure he understood?”
Vaughan nodded. “Oh, perfectly,” he answered, “I saw him Wednesday night, and told him that your meeting had been changed to Thursday, so that we’d have to put this thing over until to-night; and then I gave him Miss Graham’s message, and told him he’d have to square himself with her, because we couldn’t put things off again. And I remember his saying that it was all right for him; I even recall his repeating it after me, as if he wanted to make sure of it, ‘seven-thirty, Press Club; eight o’clock, theater; eleven o’clock, Press Club, supper and talk’; oh, no, he understood all right. I’m sure of it.”
Helmar considered. “Well,” he said at length, “just because Jack’s got a poor memory, I can’t see why we should miss a good show. Let’s leave his ticket at the desk, and if he happens to drift in, all right. Then he can come on after us. Isn’t that O. K.?” and on Vaughan’s assent, they left the club for the theater, where in due course the curtain rose, and later fell again upon an excellent performance, indeed, but without revealing any sign of the absent Carleton. Once outside in the street,Helmar turned to Vaughan. “Well, what next?” he queried.
Vaughan shrugged his shoulders. “Why, the supper’s ordered,” he answered, “so I suppose we might as well go ahead in solitary state. But it rather takes the edge off the thing. It’s too bad,” and a moment or two later he added, half to himself, and half to his companion, “I don’t know what to think of Jack, really.”
Helmar made no answer, and it was not until the supper was served in the little private room, and the waiter had withdrawn, that they again returned to the subject. “What is it about Jack, anyway?” Helmar asked. “I was out at his place the other day, and he seemed to be making no end of trouble; everybody stirred up about him. What’s he been doing?”
Vaughan helplessly shook his head. “Search me,” he answered, “you know I scarcely see him now. He travels with a different crowd these days. But I guess since he joined the Mayflower he’s changed quite a lot; playing the market, I hear, anddrinking pretty hard, and sort of gone to pieces generally.”
Helmar looked thoughtful. “That’s bad,” he said shortly, and after a pause, “Never happen to hear any gossip about him and a girl, do you?”
Again Vaughan shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he answered, “if he’s doing anything of that sort, it’s news to me. That is, I mean, anything really out of the way. Jack likes a good time, of course; we’ve always known that; but I don’t believe he’s that kind. I guess he’s all right enough that way. At any rate, I’ve always understood that he was about as good as engaged to Marjory Graham, and that ought to keep a fellow straight, if anything could.”
Helmar nodded. “Yes,” he answered abruptly, “I should say it ought. Well, never mind. Now I want to hear how things are going with you, Arthur. We’ll talk about Jack later on.”
And then, with the progress of the supper, the talk ran along as such talks will; each telling of past experiences, losses, gains; of future plans,hopes, fears; speaking of classmates and friends; skimming the passing events of the day; comparing notes on the thousand and one subjects that crowd the lips so readily when friends of long standing, who meet but seldom, settle down to the luxury of a leisurely, comfortable talk.
Meanwhile, far out on the Escomb Road, the big motor bowled swiftly along. Carleton’s arm was around the girl’s waist, her head was on his shoulder, and she was smiling up into his face. Very charming, very young and innocent she looked, unless, in some occasional passing flash of light, one could have seen the look in her eyes which lay behind the smile. “Oh, this is so nice, Jack,” she murmured; even the tone of her voice was a subtle caress, and she nestled a little closer to his side; “I could keep on like this for ever; you were so good to take me, dear.”
Carleton did not at once answer, and when he did, his tone seemed scarcely sentimental. Drowsiness, indeed, brought on by his many potations, rather than sentiment, appeared to be the spell whichbound him, and his mind wandered irresponsibly in a dozen different directions at one and the same time. “Say,” he asked suddenly, “how’d you know where a letter’d get me, anyway?”
Had the girl’s mood been real, the matter-of-fact, commonplace tone must have driven her to sudden anger; as it was, her sense of humor saved her, and after a moment or two, half in spite of herself, she gave a little laugh. “Why,” she answered lightly, “from your good-looking friend, Doctor Helmar, of course,” and the next instant she could have bitten her tongue out for the chance words, as Carleton, for the moment startled into his senses, with a sudden exclamation sat bolt upright in his seat. “Helmar,” he cried, as everything in one instant’s flash came back to him, “to-night was the night. Oh, Lord, I wouldn’t have done this for a thousand dollars.” Then leaning forward, to the chauffeur, “Here there, you, stop a minute!” he cried; and fumbling in his pocket for his watch, he glanced at it, and then looked quickly around him. “Ten o’clock,” he muttered, “we can make it;” then, aloud, “Put her round now, driver,and head her straight for town; let her out, and let her go!”
With a surprised grin, the chauffeur slowly slackened speed, reversed his power, and ponderously turned the big car about. The girl meantime protested vigorously. “No, no,” she cried, “why, Jack, we’re almost out there now; what do you care for him, anyway? You wouldn’t do a thing like that, Jack. You’ve got better manners than to leave me now. How shall I get home? Now, Jack—”
Carleton, with a most disconcerting lack of gallantry, obstinately shook his head. “This very important,” he said, “we’ll go back way of Birches; leave you there; this ’xceedingly important. You don’t understand. You never went college. Quincentennial—no, quinquecentennial, no, quinquen—oh, damn, five years out of college, that’s what it is. Special dinner. Oh, what a fool I was to forget. How could I?”
The girl sat with frowning brows. “Oh, very well,” she said, offended, “you needn’t askmeto go anywhere with you again; that’s all;” and then,this remark having no noticeable effect, she began softly to cry.
Instantly Carleton’s shifting mood had veered again, and in a moment his arm was once more around her waist, and he leaned protectingly over her.
“Come, come,” he cried, “don’ do that. Can’t stan’ that. We’ll go out there s’mother time, my dear. But not t’night, not t’night; special t’night; special; awful good fellows, both of ’em; better’n I am, damn sight. Both good fellows. Don’t cry.”
With a quick, sinuous movement she wrenched herself free, putting half the distance of the broad cushioned seat between them. “Don’t,” she cried, “I hate you!” and in constrained and moody silence the big motor whirred along upon its homeward way.
Nor was home to be gained without further misadventure. Presently, even before they had covered half the distance to The Birches, something went wrong with the machine, and the chauffeur, steering in close to the side of the road, dismountedand began to search for the trouble, spurred on by the accompaniment of Carleton’s speech, which seemed every moment to gain in picturesqueness and force. Suddenly out of the darkness appeared two broad white streaks of dazzling light, the wail of a horn sounded in their ears, and another automobile passed them, to draw up, just beyond, with a quick grinding and jarring of brakes. A friendly voice hailed them. “Anything wrong? Help you out?” Carleton started at the words. He leaned forward in the seat, and whispered hastily to the chauffeur. Instantly the latter answered, “No thank you, sir, nothing wrong,” and the second motor sped along upon its way. Carleton’s brow contracted. “Wonder if he saw,” he muttered, “light’s pretty bright; looked like Marjory, too; didn’t know the colonel drove much at night, anyway.” There was a moment’s pause; then all at once, he added, “Friday! Friday! Good God! that was the other thing. Damn the luck! Damn everything!” and mingling threats and entreaties, he renewed his urging to the worried chauffeur.
An hour later, at the Press Club, Vaughan’s cigar was well under way, and Helmar was helping himself to a second cup of coffee, when suddenly the door burst open, and there appeared before them the somewhat unsteady figure of their absent friend. Before either of them could speak, he had begun a rambling and incoherent apology, continuing it as he sank limply into the chair reserved for him.
“Must ’scuse me,” was the burden of his speech, “mem’ry comple’ly wen’ back on me; thoroughly ’shame myself—” and there was much more in the same vein; then, all at once reaching the sentimental stage of his orgy, he began to develop a vein of maudlin self-pity; “Helmar,” he cried despairingly, “you been good fren’ me always. I tell you, ’s no good. I try—I try ’s hard’s anyone—and oh, Helmar—” his voice broke, and with a mixture of the ridiculous and the pathetic that made both his hearers choke a little hysterically, even while their eyes were moist, he culminated despairingly, “’S no use, fellers; ’s no use; I’ll tell you where’m going;I’m going to hell in a hack;thash what I am,” and forthwith he laid his head upon the table, and began to weep.
It was long after midnight when Helmar and Vaughan finally deposited him, remonstrating and unwilling, in safety at the Mayflower, leaving him in skilful hands well versed in the treatment of his malady, and found themselves, flushed, weary, and not in the best of humors, again in the street.
“And so ends our great reunion,” said Vaughan, mopping his heated forehead. “Jack ought to feel pleased with himself; he’s certainly succeeded in knocking all the pleasure out of it for everybody, about as well as any one could. And I think, on the whole, that I’m inclined to agree with him about where he’s bound.”
Helmar sighed, a sigh of honest disappointment and anxiety. “Jack’s a mighty good fellow,” he answered, “but he’s certainly in a bad way now. If he ever means to amount to anything, he’s got to fight, and fight hard, too. Well, come on, Arthur, I suppose we’d better get to bed,” and thus the long-planned quinquennial reunion came sadly and dismally to an end.