HE was unaware of it, but none the less Stephen was on trial with Benson. The lawyer had neither the wish nor purpose to influence him in any particular, he seemed quite willing that the young fellow should develop in his own way and after his own fashion; and if it were a good fashion it would be well with him; if it were not a good fashion, it would not be so well with him. Yet no matter what Stephen did or failed to do for himself, within certain limits which were already clearly defined in his own mind, Benson intended to right in him the wrong he had done Virginia Landray. The least he would do would be to provide adequately for his future. So he settled down to watch Stephen drift; a thing Stephen was ready enough to do, for he was finding existence very pleasant in the little Ohio town; certain of its aspects rather amused him, but on the whole it was not lacking in culture and dignity, while the concerns of life were carried on with considerable zeal. He was regarded locally as Benson's heir; a thing he, too, believed when it occurred to him to speculate on the future.
In time the lawyer came to have a real and deep affection for the young fellow; he became more and more dependent as the weeks slipped by. He had not understood before how empty his life was; and as his affection for Stephen grew, he became less critical of him, until he finally ceased to watch him from any such impulse. But Gibbs was not so well satisfied with the situation. He, too, felt a fatherly interest in the young fellow. He was familiar with Benson's prejudices, and was conscious that if Stephen had been any one else the lawyer would have heartily disapproved of him. Gibbs wondered how long it would be until Benson reverted to his normal standards. He hoped there would be no disappointments in store for Stephen. One day alone with Benson in the office, he took occasion to say:
“Jake, what's Stephen going to do with himself? He ain't going around with his hands in his pockets all his life, is he?”
“Why shouldn't he, if he wants to, and if I want him to?” retorted Benson sharply.
“Well, you're rather down on idleness as a general thing, Jake; mighty little of it's entered into your experience.”
Personally, Gibbs had no illusions about industry, he considered it a fine thing, so long as it paid.
“The Bensons have always worked hard enough,” said the lawyer.
“That's not so true of the Landrays, he favours the Landrays,” and Gibbs chuckled.
“He is half Benson. Why shouldn't we enjoy now? I am glad enough to see some one who is gracefully idle; who seems to be able to do nothing without getting into mischief and making a mess of it.
“Well, he seems to have an infinite capacity in that direction. I've never heard him complain of not having an occupation. It ain't a thing he misses much, I should say,” said Gibbs.
If Gibbs could not rid himself of the conviction that Stephen should be thinking of his future, Virginia was very strongly of this same opinion, too. She had no faith in Benson, and his indifference in the case of Stephen she felt was fraught with disastrous possibilities for the latter. His strength and vigour, his very manhood would be sapped by his condition of dependence. From her, this feeling spread to Mrs. Walsh, and Harriett, and Elinor, and even to Mark Norton, who partook in some measure of all their prejudices, for he found that incessant reiteration sooner or later fastened them upon him.
Stephen's lack of all ambition was a blow to Elinor. She had more than liked him from the first, but Ben Wade had always been held up to her by Clara, as a shining example of what a young man should be; and Clara's convictions, which were always advanced with singular steadiness, never failed to impress her. If Wade was all Clara said, and she hoped Clara was not mistaken, surely Stephen's lack of all apparent ambition was anything but praiseworthy. She would have liked to rouse him, to have pointed out to him, that a young man who had leisure for afternoon calls, was in the nature of an innovation in Benson. She did not doubt that when she returned home this was one of the first things Clara would do, for Clara was the soul of uncompromising candour.
Of Ben Wade Stephen saw much. Wade's attitude was that of a lifelong friend who was resuming a merely interrupted intimacy, and in this light Stephen came to look upon him and to accept him. Wade possessed a wide popularity, but the liking in which he was held extended to no other member of his family. Wade himself did not appear to notice this, certainly he did not resent it. This struck Stephen as odd, and it was one of the things he admired his friend the less for. Another thing he was not slow to observe, was that he was very welcome at the Norton's; but he admitted that Ben could hardly be blamed for having made the most of his opportunities, whether professional or social.
Ben was also his aunt's lawyer, and it was from him that he came to know something of his aunt's affairs; that the sale of what had once been farm-land about the cottage, was her only source of revenue.
“She'll be in a bad way when she gets to the end of that,” said Wade rather indifferently.
“You mean she has nothing beyond, no investments, no income?” Stephen asked.
“Nothing that I know of. She's been selling off lots for the past ten years whenever she needed money; luckily she hasn't needed much.”
Wade's explanation was off hand enough, and Stephen was rather offended by it. He had all along been sensible of a certain callousness on the part of his friend, which Wade with all his shrewdness either could not hide, or else did not know existed. He wondered if this was not one of the results of those hard knocks he had probably received.
“I had an idea, I don't know where or how I got it, that Uncle Jake was my aunt's lawyer,” said Stephen.
“Used to be,” said Wade, jabbing the blade of his pen-knife into the arm of his chair. They were seated in his office, where Landray, in his idleness and lack of all occupation spent much of his time, since Wade, too, was cursed with a larger amount of leisure than was wholly satisfactory to him.
“He's a mighty interesting man—Mr. Benson, I mean—no matter who you are or what you are, sooner or later you're made to feel his importance. If you are a poor man, the time is certain to come when you'll house yourself in one of his tenements, with the privilege of handing over the rent each month to old Gibbs; if you are in business, it's pretty certain he can help or hinder your schemes. There is just one thing! Don't lock horns with him; those who do, go away crippled. He's a potent influence in the life here, Steve; perhaps we don't analyse or realize it, but he stands for the power that money gives; he is the first and last expression of that power to most of us.”
“But he's very simple and kindly,” suggested Stephen.
“I don't know, with so much to say in the affairs of his neighbours, he'd hardly dare to be autocratic; but he's a great lawyer, for a country lawyer, he's really a big man; there's no gainsaying that.” Wade spoke with enthusiasm. “When he takes a case now, he picks and chooses; his fighting days are over, and he is on the winning side or else out of it. He's always been most kind to me; first and last he's thrown quite a little practice my way.”
“You're an energetic fellow, Wade, and deserve to get on. They can't say enough about you at the Nortons.”
“They're mighty good to me there,” said Wade heartily. “You know, my people not being rich or important here has made a difference. There were those who were disposed to patronize me. I mighty soon let 'em know I wouldn't stand for that, but from the first, Mr. Norton and his family just let me know they were plain friendly.”
“Is Clara interesting?” asked Stephen insinuatingly. Clara he had not yet met.
Ben shot him a shrewd glance out of the corners of his eyes, then he centred his attention on the knife with which he was still jabbing the arm of the chair.
“Well, yes,” he said hesitatingly.
“Pretty?”
“Yes;” and the yes came slowly from between slightly smiling lips.
“She's younger than Elinor?”
“Yes—two years—you'll like her, Landray.” A slight but perceptible enthusiasm was betraying itself in his manner. This aggravated Stephen. Why should Wade want him to like Clara, and why shouldn't he?
“They're both nice girls,” said Wade.
Landray looked out of the window and said nothing. Wade now saw fit to change the subject.
“I heard from Reddy the other day—oh, yes, I told you.”
“I liked Reddy,” said Stephen.
“One would have thought that he'd have made fine practice for a lawyer,” said Wade, “but nothing of the sort has happened. The spirit of prophesy has gone wide of the mark in his case; he is so successful, in a moneyed sense I mean, that he's hardly gotten over the surprise of it. He can't repress a latent enthusiasm at the thought that he's Riley Crittendon, with several thousand head of choice beef cattle all his own. Perhaps I found him depressing because he's gotten ahead so quick.”
“But you'll find perhaps that your point of view will change with a little of the same kind of luck, Ben,” said Stephen.
Wade shook his head.
“No, I don't know that it will. I've always expected to succeed; I've been impatient that I should be kept out of my own; but by the same token, I won't feel any special enthusiasm when I come into it.”
When Wade had told him, as he had, that much as he despised society, still from motives that always bore upon professional gains, he found it well worth his while to keep in and do the right thing, Stephen was inclined to jeer. Then he made the discovery that he was curiously involved with Wade; and realized that in assuming the burden of his social destinies as he had done, that thrifty fellow was still doing only the right thing, and with an eye single to his future; that somehow he was to be made contributary to his success present and to come, and that it was something more than mere affection that had prompted him to claim an intimacy on the score of their boyish friendship.
“Every one wants to meet you, Steve,” he had once said.
“Why?” Stephen had asked.
“It's natural, ain't it? First and last, the Landrays have filled a pretty conspicuous place here, and then your relation to Mr. Benson makes you interesting; everybody thinks you'll come into a lot of his money one of these days, and they're none of them above wishing to get next to a potential millionaire.”
“What about your designs on me, Ben?”
“Oh, well, I guess whoever writes my epitaph will have to say, 'He never did anything for nothing.' At the least I shall expect to be your lawyer. My designs are no more sinister than that.”
Stephen laughed. He rather liked him for his candour. He felt that the best of Wade was his candour.
In spite of the social obligations with which he sometimes accused Wade, in the character of friend and mentor, with having loaded him up, he was oftener at the Nortons than at any other house in town.
It was Elinor who drew him thither; she had attracted him from the hour of their first meeting. There were times when he thought, when indeed he was quite sure, she liked him. There were also other times when he was equally sure she did not.
He even went so far as to suspect Wade in some degree with being responsible for the vicissitudes he suffered at her hands. He was quite sure she liked Wade; and Wade's relation with her, as well as with her father and mother, was that of a close and valued friend. He wondered if he had not a right to demand an explanation of Wade. He did not want to appear absurd, but if she was in any way bound to him, he felt that he should know it. He made elaborate plans to trap Ben into some sort of a confession on this point, but Wade, expert in evasions, was never trapped. When he avoided Wade and stole off to the Nortons by himself, he invariably found him there; sometimes playing cards with the banker, but more often with Elinor at the piano. Stephen rather despised men who sang, and the sound of Wade's clear tenor voice filled him with disgust.
“I haven't seen Wade in two days,” he told Elinor one night. “Do you know what's become of him?”
“He is out of town.”
“He's terribly energetic,” said Stephen.
“Don't you think he has done remarkably well, Stephen, for so young a man, and one who has had no help?” she asked.
“I can't quite agree to that. It seems to me that every one does help him; and those who don't, he uses whether they want to be used or not. Take your father, for instance, you can hardly deny that he has done what he could to push Wade; and even Uncle Jake seems inclined to go out of his way to advance his interests.” Stephen was not in a frame of mind to admire Wade.
“I think you overstate the importance of what others have done for him; his own people have never been able to help him at all, and now he is doing what he can for them; he is going to educate his brothers.”
“Well, he should be glad of the chance; I hope he don't make capital of that!”
“Evidently it hasn't made capital, as you call it, with you, Stephen. I didn't know you could be so ungenerous.”
“It isn't that, Elinor, but I am sure you never say the good things of me you find to say of him.”
“Perhaps you don't give me the occasion to.”
“Don't give you the occasion! I am just waiting to hear you launch out in commendation of me!”
“I don't mean—”
“You don't mean what?” he asked.
“I have no right to criticise you,” she said.
“I like that!” he laughed. “So I am a fit subject for criticism? Well, I want to be criticised. Come—it's a duty! Through neglect of the proper functions of criticism there is no telling how far wrong I may go. At home my uncle and Gibbs never say anything; affection must dull the sight terribly. I am sure you look at it differently, you are not blind to my imperfections.”
“Are you blind to mine?”
“You haven't any, Elinor. Beyond your unwillingness to point out to me where I fail, they are undiscoverable.”
“I am afraid you are not very serious, Stephen.”
“I am sure that if I had your opinion of me I should be serious enough. I can read whole volumes of adverse criticism in your eyes.”
“Do you really want me to tell you what I think?”
“I do indeed. I have always desired enlightenment on that one momentous subject, you will never know the speculation it has provoked me to.”
“But I have no right to judge you.”
“That is what we always say, but we judge just the same.”
“I wish you would take an interest in things, then, Stephen, in real things.”
“What are the real things that need my attention?”
“What are you going to do with your life?”
“My dear Elinor, I expect it will be what my life does with me.”
“I hate to see you drift so aimlessly.”
“You'd equip me with a purpose, a purpose such as Wade has—to use all his friends?”
“That is very unjust.”
“I'll grant that; well, yes, I am drifting, very much so.”
“I blame you for that attitude. Are you going to compel nothing, are you always going to drift?”
“And so you think I should display more activity; but what about, my dear Elinor? Point out the direction in which duty lies.”
“But I cannot direct you, you must see for yourself.”
“I wish you would direct me.”
She frowned and blushed slightly at this.
“I'd willingly resign all my independence to you, Elinor.”
“This is nonsense, Stephen,” she said quickly.
“You always put me off with that!” he said. “You know it's not nonsense! You know I am serious. Help me make something of myself—shall I tell you all this involves?” he reached out, but she avoided his hand. He drew back ruefully. There was a moment's silence, then he said:
“There's one thing I'd like to know, Elinor, it's about Wade. May I ask you?”
“About Ben, what about Ben?” she asked.
“Do you care for him?” he demanded eagerly.
“Yes, very much, but not as you have evidently been silly enough to suppose. How could you, Stephen! It is Clara he is interested in. You are not usually so dull.”
“Clara?”
“They are waiting until Ben can make a living. She is very young. I don't suppose mother would be willing she should marry even if Ben's practice was as large now as he seems to think it will be in two or three years.”
“Well, I think Ben might have told me that!” cried Stephen.
“I wonder he didn't,” said Elinor.
“Elinor, let me tell you—”
“Don't tell me anything, Stephen, I don't want to hear it!” she said determinedly, the colour coming into her face.
“Why not?”
“You are not in a position—” again she came to an abrupt stop. “To marry—you would say? Why not, Elinor?”
“Why, Stephen, what have you to offer a woman?”
“As much as any man—my love,” he said stoutly.
“A girl might accept that, and might not care to share the position you accept, of dependence;” but when she had spoken, she caught her breath with a little gasp of dismay. She had said not more than she felt, but much more than she felt she had any right to say. “I mean, Stephen, that while you may be satisfied with your relation with Mr. Benson, it might not be so satisfactory to the girl you marry; she would not wish to feel dependent.”
“She needn't, I don't feel dependent.”
“I wish you did Stephen; it would be the saving of you.”
“Thank you,” he laughed shortly, for he was taking a sense of hurt from her words.
“I wish you were not so devoid of ambition.”
“How do you know I am?” he asked. “And frankly, I don't feel my dependence, as you call it. Uncle Jake has never intimated that he felt it either; so why should I worry? None of you like my uncle; Aunt Virginia don't, I am aware of that; but I do appreciate his goodness to me, I try to repay it as best I can, in the way most satisfactory to him. I've told him I ought to be doing something. I know that; but I suppose there's no hurry; he don't seem to think so, anyhow.”
“But you can't be free on that basis, Stephen. Don't you see, if you displeased him—don't you see he will always control you?”
“Well, what of it? He is not unjust. He is the most absolutely fair minded man I ever knew, and kindness itself. Look how he tolerates old General Gibbs! But my aunt's prejudiced against him, and you reflect her feeling in the matter.”
“Aunt Virginia never says anything about Mr. Benson! I don't believe I ever heard her mention his name ten times in my life!”
“No, but she gives one more to think about by reason of what she leaves unsaid, than by what she says. I've known from the first that she didn't like him, and I tell you candidly, I think her attitude all wrong, and most unkind. She's making it so I can't go there with any degree of comfort; I'm always conscious of her feeling of hostility. I fancy she would like to see me break with Uncle Jake, but you know I never shall do that, he's been too good to me!”
“He has done nothing Aunt Virginia would not have done gladly if she could!”
“I am not making any comparisons,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “But this is not what we were speaking of a moment ago, Elinor.”
“I told you what I felt, and what I thought.”
“That my position of dependence was wholly displeasing to you. I've tried to make you see that I do not regard it as a position of dependence.”
“Not for yourself, perhaps, you are the best judge of that; but for another—I should feel that it was, and almost any girl would do the same. How could it be otherwise, Stephen?”
“You'll certainly provoke me to activity of some sort, Elinor; but heaven only knows how disastrous the results may be! I'll study law, and get Ben to take me into his office! How would Wade and Lan-dray look on a large gilt sign?”
“You are not serious.”
“Not in the sense that you are, but I began life seriously enough. The first year at school I thought I'd die of home-sickness. I was the most utterly wretched boy in the world; and then I adjusted myself to the situation. I decided, what was the use! I learned to take things as they were.”
“Don't you think it was needlessly hard of Mr. Benson to keep you away from Aunt Virginia?”
“How can you say he did that! It was circumstances that kept me away, that was all.”
“But during your vacations?”
“I was generally under a tutor then, for I don't mind telling you I was not especially brilliant; it took a lot of pushing to get me through, and my tutors led a dog's life of it trying to cram me with wisdom my mental stomach would reject. I fancy the scholarship of the Landrays was never their strong point.”
“You must have been very lonely all those years.”
“I was; and do you wonder that I feel for Uncle Jake as I do, that I resent any slighting thought of him? Why, he was the only one who ever came to see me!”
“But you must not be unjust to Aunt Virginia.” She was feeling a great pity for Virginia. If Ben's mission proved fruitful, Stephen would hold to his faith in Benson; gratitude and self-interest alike would sway him. “You know we are all devoted to Aunt Virginia here, and the least criticism of her—”
“Have I criticised her? You can't admire her more than I do. I only wish she and Uncle Jake hit it off better, I feel somehow placed between them, she makes me feel her dislike of him; I'm hurt by it!”
They were silent again, and then he said:
“You don't answer me, Elinor, I don't know how you feel toward me.”
“You must wait, something may happen.”
“But nothing can possibly happen to change my feeling for you.”
“You don't know, you may be wiser in a day or so; no, you must wait and see! I have no right to tell you, I have no right to even hint at anything—there! you must not ask me to explain—I can't!”
WADE watched Stephen furtively out of the corner of his eye. To his practical mind, partisanship had its price. Self-interest had always been the paramount consideration with him, and he believed it would be so with Stephen. He had urged Virginia to act independently, but to this she would not hear; so he had brought Stephen to her.
“I wish, Mr. Wade,” it was Virginia who spoke. “I wish you would tell Stephen what it is we have discovered, I think you can make it clearer to him than I can.”
Stephen turned to Wade in mute surprise. He had not understood why his aunt had sent for him.
“Certainly, if you wish it, Mrs. Landray.” Stephen had the uneasy feeling that something not entirely pleasant was about to happen. Wade began by telling briefly of the papers Reddy had sent.
“Now, Steve,” he said, “there was just one curious fact that the examination of these papers revealed. Among the properties described was a certain tract of land. Mrs. Landray knew about this land, that her husband and your grandfather had accepted it from a man by the name of Levi Tucker in part payment for property in the town here. Your aunt knew of this first transaction; but her husband's memorandum shows that there must have been a subsequent transfer by Tucker. The first transaction was for a thousand acres, the second was for the same acreage. This land your aunt accepted in the division of the estate when your grandmother married a second time. She supposed she was getting a thousand acres, the records show that she actually received two thousand acres. This land she held for a number of years, but finally at Mr. Benson's instigation, sold it. That is, to the best of her knowledge she sold a thousand acres. The records tell quite another story. She deeded away two thousand and some odd acres.”
At first Stephen had hardly comprehended the drift of Ben's explanation. Now he wheeled on him with quick anger.
“What do you mean to insinuate, Wade!” he demanded.
“Hold on, Steve—” began Wade steadily.
“Don't Steve me!” cried the younger man hotly. “We are not friends after this.”
“That may be as it may be,” said Wade grimly, the colour creeping into his sallow cheeks; “but you will have to hear me out, Lan-dray. Not because it concerns me in the least, but because it is a matter that vitally concerns your aunt. I didn't suppose you'd like to hear what I'm going to say. In your place, I shouldn't.”
Stephen told Wade curtly to go on; he avoided looking in Virginia's direction. He wished to spare her the knowledge of the bitterness of his feeling toward her. But Wade's level voice broke the painful silence, he had carefully marshalled his facts, for while he believed he knew just the stand Stephen would take, for the sake of the case itself he wished to make the points very clear to him; then if he desired to break violently with his aunt, so much the better, she would have a double motive for wishing to go on with the suit.
He held Stephen with his eyes as he piled up the evidence against Benson, and Landray's face went red and white by turns, for as he warmed to his task, Wade's arraignment of the old lawyer became more and more incisive and vicious. He dwelt almost passionately on Virginia's trust and confidence in Benson, and then he told of the sale of the land, of the pittance she had received for it, and of Benson's subsequent transaction with Southerland.
“And I've copies of the records, Steve, properly attested by the County Clerk, you can compare the dates.” He took the papers from his pocket, and tossed them on the table. Hardly knowing why he did it, Stephen took them up with shaking hands.
“There is some mistake,” he said, but his voice was strange even to himself.
“I think not, Steve,” said Wade smoothly. “Can you point it out?”
Virginia said nothing. She was watching Stephen's face, but his eyes were turned resolutely from her, he would not meet her glance, and her heart sank. Did it mean, that right or wrong, he would cast his lot with Benson!
“I want to look over these papers myself,” said Stephen gruffly, and he spread them out on the table before him. “No, I don't want your help;” for Wade had made as if to draw up a chair.
Rebuffed, Ben withdrew to the window. The young fellow would have a bad quarter of an hour while he mastered the facts contained in those papers, and he was conscious of a sense of placid satisfaction at the thought. Stephen pored over the papers with burning eyes; their legal phrasing obscured their real significance at first, but in the end he was able to grasp the facts that Wade wanted him to grasp, the number of acres, and the dates of the various transfers.
“Well?” he said, glancing up, and turning toward Wade.
“Your aunt supposed she was selling one thousand acres. Am I right, Mrs. Landray?”
“Yes,” said Virginia, but her eyes dwelt yearningly on her nephew, though he still avoided her gaze.
“She received five thousand dollars for the land. Mr. Benson was more fortunate. He received fifty thousand dollars for it. Look at the dates, you will see that not two weeks elapsed between the two transactions.”
“But here, what about this man Stark?” asked Stephen, catching at a straw.
“Stark was merely used as a decoy, your aunt never saw him. That his name appears only makes the evidence of premeditated fraud the stronger.”
Stephen winced at the word.
“You saw the original—” he was at a loss for the right word.
“The original entries, yes.” Wade's voice was hard and emotionless, but it rang with a triumph he could not wholly repress or deny himself.
“And you are sure that they correspond in every particular—the dates I mean—with those given in the copies?” asked Stephen.
“Those copies are correct in every particular,” said Wade shortly.
“Well, what does it mean!”
“It means, Steve, that Mr. Benson tricked your aunt out of forty-five thousand dollars by a most inartistic swindle. It means also, that he bargained for a thousand acres, and took two.”
“I don't believe it!” cried the young man hoarsely. “There is some mistake, it is impossible!”
0445
“Not unless dates and figures lie, Steve.”
“Have you seen Uncle Jake?”
“Not yet, there is plenty of time for that,” and Wade smiled evilly.
“He can probably explain the whole thing away.”
“Will you go to him for an explanation?” demanded Wade eagerly. He would have liked that, it would probably finish Stephen with the old lawyer, and force him to side with his aunt.
“I? What do you take me for?” exclaimed Stephen, and his face was white. “Do you think I'd so grossly insult him, do you suppose for one minute I could doubt him—I, of all people, when he has conferred nothing but benefits on me all my life long!”
“According to my figures there is still something due you in the shape of cash,” said Wade coldly. “Your father's interest in that thousand acres.”
“Well, what does that amount to?”
“Very little, I grant you, Landray, but your aunt is not related to Mr. Benson as you are; she does not feel under any special obligations to him, she considers that she has been defrauded out of a large sum of money by him. That, you must admit, is a serious matter to her; a matter she can't well ignore.”
“And what are you going to do?” asked Stephen in a dry-throated whisper.
“If Mrs. Landray will take my advice, she will sue Mr. Benson.”
Stephen looked helplessly from one to the other.
“You are all wrong!” he burst out almost entreatingly. “I'd stake my life on it! You'll find you have no case; but think of the humiliation to him, the opportunity for mean-souled envy to smirch a great reputation!”
Wade shrugged his shoulders.
“He'll have a chance to clear his reputation in the courts, he'll come out spotless if he is spotless.”
“Go to him first!” urged Stephen. “Ask him to look over these papers with you. Why, probably a word from him will explain the whole thing, and make it clear as day.”
“Will you do that, Landray?” then he turned to Virginia. “You are quite willing he should discuss this question with Mr. Benson?”
“Yes.”
But Stephen drew back from this.
“I've told you it is impossible for me to bring it to his notice.”
“I mean in the most delicate way you can, not formally as a direct charge reflecting on his honesty. Look here, Stephen, it's only fair to yourself that you should hear from his own lips what he has to say. There is no haste, you'd better think it over, I don't doubt that you can bring the thing to his notice with less offence than another.”
“But if Stephen feels as he does,” began Virginia. She did not like the manner in which Wade was forcing the matter upon him.
“No, no, Aunt Virginia, it's right enough. If you are in doubt on these points, they should be made plain to you. I am sure Uncle Jake will be ready and anxious to explain, for his own sake as well as yours.”
But Virginia was not so sure of this; her conception of Benson's character being quite different from Stephen's. The Benson she had known and liked and trusted had died long ago, and in his place stood a hard, tyrannical man, a man she confessed she did not know, but feared. He had sacrificed Stephen Landray; and he had taken from her Stephen Landray's son. She owned to the bitterest feeling toward him, she wanted to see him despoiled and published to the world for what he was. She had no mercy for him. He had done the Landrays a monstrous evil, and it was right that he should suffer. Her code was simple and severe.
She put no faith in those possible benefits that might come to Stephen if he remained friendly with him. She did not believe for one moment that Benson had ever, or even now expected to do for Stephen in any large way. At best the benefits he conferred smacked of charity and gifts, the boy's character was being destroyed by his indulgence. But if they could only recover this money, it would give him a start in life of which he need not be shamed, for it was the Landray money, and time and circumstance had wonderfully increased it.
The loss of Stephen's affection and respect she believed would be but a slight matter to Benson; certainly the boy's father had loved him once, and he had quickly parted with him, and apparently without even a passing regret; it would be the same with this Stephen. As for the disgrace, the shame of exposure, she knew the world too well to suppose that the world's manifestation of scorn would ever touch Benson; the tangible evidence of his power and riches were too apparent for that; whatever men might feel in secret, they would not falter in the external show of respect; they would still need and desire his help and countenance in their affairs. She did not even believe that Benson himself would suffer. That he could have done this thing, argued to her an utter and astonishing depravity. She remembered that at the very time when he had bought the land, he had not ceased to declare his love for her. She flushed hotly at the recollection. If she could only make Stephen understand his duty as she saw his duty, all would be well with him. There would again be a Landray fortune, the family would again step into its old place of importance in the community, and the young fellow before her would be the same sort of a man his grandfather and her husband had been. She thought with bitterness of his father, and his pathetic failures; and her eyes filled with tears.
But Wade wished to arrive at some definite conclusion. If suit was to be brought, he wanted to know it soon.
“See here, Landray,” he said, “you can't decide at once; the matter can rest for a day or so, if Mrs. Landray is willing, while you make up your mind.”
Stephen glanced at Virginia. He was incapable of feeling any very great sympathy for her just then, but he wanted to spare Benson if he could. The mere suspicion they had been seeking to implant in his mind seemed as insulting as it was untenable. That there was any foundation for it, except what might have arisen out of the loss of some papers or through some stupid blunder, was too absurd for him to even entertain. He did not doubt Benson's ability to fully vindicate himself. Now he grudgingly admitted that he might furnish such an opportunity with less offence than another, certainly he did not want Wade to go to him. Wade was too assertive, too sure of his ground, too sure of Benson's trickery. Mentally he sought to frame the question with all the delicacy, the vagueness, he could wish. He quitted his chair by the table.
“I'll let you know in a day or two, whether or not I can tell Uncle Jake of this, Aunt Virginia.” He ignored Wade. He was willing to think that the lawyer might be solely responsible for the situation.
“Wait,” said Wade, “I am going your way, if you will have it.” He was determined not to be snubbed or affronted, and as soon as they were out of the house he said kindly and with an air of good-natured remonstrance that Stephen could not well resist. “Look here, Steve, you can't act this way with me. I won't have it. You've got to be reasonable. I've been your friend, and I'm bound to remain your friend. I'm your aunt's lawyer though, and she's got a right to expect me to take an interest in her concerns. If she hasn't me, whom has she? Not you, certainly; and you must just bear this in mind, it's an important matter to her, for if there's, any chance of getting thirty or forty thousand dollars out of Benson, she can't afford to let it pass, particularly as the money's hers. Don't you see this?”
“Yes, I suppose so; but, Ben, this whole thing's absurd, why, you know that Uncle Jake could not have done anything of this kind, it's just some mistake.”
“Well, if it is, he can best explain it away,” said Wade encouragingly. “I pledge you my word I spent a good deal of time in trying to find the mistake, but it baffles me. Still you never can tell,” he added cheerfully.
“I'd stake my life on it that he never wronged anyone—man, woman, or child!” cried Stephen.
“Ask him about it,” urged Wade. “I swear I'd like to see him stand clear. I'm no harpy; ask him, Steve.”
“I'd like to, that is I feel it's my duty to, but don't you see, I'm afraid of hurting him; I'm bound to him by numberless kindnesses.”
“Of course you are, and you can put the matter to him without offence,” said Wade soothingly.
“If I only thought I could!” said Stephen. “If I only thought I could!”
“Now, if I went to him—” began Wade meditatively.
“You—you mustn't!” interposed Stephen shortly.
“No, I suppose not. He might freeze up with me, and I wouldn't stand for that. After all, I'm your aunt's lawyer, and my dignity's my client's. If I go to him, I'll exact what's due me; it's not a personal matter; really, I have every reason to like Mr. Benson.” He seemed so reasonable, so charitable, that Stephen's heart warmed toward him, as Wade intended it should. “I think you are counting on his being rather more sensitive than he is, Steve. He's been in active practice for a great many years, and disagreeable things are always cropping up. Just ask him about it offhand, in no formal way you understand, but make it clear to him what we have stumbled on. I agree with you that he should have every chance to explain we don't want to rush into litigation that is going to make us appear absurd; for I tell you when we really fall foul of Mr. Benson it's going to stir up a hornet's nest, it'll shake things loose!”
“You mustn't count on me,” said Stephen. “It's not that I'd be making a sacrifice, the sacrifice would be nothing in itself, but I can't hurt him.”
“I understand exactly how you feel. I don't want to see you get yourself involved; but I do think that you are the best person to bring this to his notice.”
But Wade had no illusions concerning Benson. The explanation he was urging Stephen to invite, he knew could explain nothing; but it might bring about a rupture with Benson, and then Virginia would have every motive for beginning suit at once; and Wade saw himself on the threshold of a great career, his plodding shyster days at an end.