It is a dreadful thing to hate one's own father; to hate him and be unable to forgive him even though he is dead, although he paid for his sin with his life. Death is said to pay all debts, but there are some it cannot pay. To my father I owed my present ambitionless, idle, good-for-nothing life, my mother's illness, years of disgrace, the loss of a name—everything.
Paine was my mother's maiden name; she was christened Comfort Paine. My own Christian name is Roscoe and my middle name is Paine. My other name, the name I was born with, the name that Mother took when she married, we dropped when the disgrace came upon us. It was honored and respected once; now when it was repeated people coupled it with shame and crime and dishonor and broken trust.
As a boy I remember myself as a spoiled youngster who took the luxuries of this world for granted. I attended an expensive and select private school, idled my way through that somehow, and entered college, a happy-go-lucky young fellow with money in my pocket. For two-thirds of my Freshman year—which was all I experienced of University life—I enjoyed myself as much as possible, and studied as little. Then came the telegram. I remember the looks of the messenger who brought it, the cap he wore, and the grin on his young Irish face when the fellow sitting next me at the battered black oak table in the back room of Kelly's asked him to have a beer. I remember the song we were singing, the crowd of us, how it began again and then stopped short when the others saw the look on my face. The telegram contained but four words: “Come home at once.” It was signed with the name of my father's lawyer.
I presume I shall never forget even the smallest incident of that night journey in the train and the home-coming. The lawyer's meeting me at the station in the early morning; his taking care that I should not see the newspapers, and his breaking the news to me. Not of the illness or death which I had feared and dreaded, but of something worse—disgrace. My father was an embezzler, a thief. He had absconded, had run away, like the coward he was, taking with him what was left of his stealings. The banking house of which he had been the head was insolvent. The police were on his track. And, worse and most disgraceful of all, he had not fled alone. There was a woman with him, a woman whose escapades had furnished the papers with sensations for years.
I had never been well acquainted with my father. We had never been friends and companions, like other fathers and sons I knew. I remember him as a harsh, red-faced man, whom, as a boy, I avoided as much as possible. As I grew older I never went to him for advice; he was to me a sort of walking pocket-book, and not much else. Mother has often told me that she remembers him as something quite different, and I suppose it must be true, otherwise she would not have married him; but to me he was a source of supply coupled with a bad temper, that was all. That I was not utterly impossible, that, going my own gait as I did, I was not a complete young blackguard, I know now was due entirely to Mother. She and I were as close friends as I would permit her to be. Father had neglected us for years, though how much he had neglected and ill-treated her I did not know until she told me, afterward. She was in delicate health even then, but, when the blow fell, it was she and not I who bore up bravely and it was her pluck and nerve, not mine, which pulled us through that dreadful time.
And it was dreadful. The stories and pictures in the papers! The rumors, always contradicted, that the embezzler had been caught! The misrepresentation and lies and scandal! The loss of those whom we had supposed were friends! Mother bore them all, wore a calm, brave face in public, and only when alone with me gave way, and then but at rare intervals. She clung to me as her only comfort and hope. I was sullen and wrathful and resentful, an unlicked cub, I suspect, whose complaints were selfish ones concerning the giving up of my college life and its pleasures, and the sacrifice of social position and wealth.
Mother had—or so we thought at the time—a sum in her own name which would enable us to live; although not as we had lived by a great deal. We took an apartment in an unfashionable quarter of the city, and thanks to the lawyer—who proved himself a real and true friend—I was given a minor position in a small bank. Oddly enough, considering my former life, I liked the work, it interested me, and during the next few years I was made, by successive promotions, bookkeeper, teller, and, at last, assistant cashier. No news came from the absconder. The police had lost track of him, and it seemed probable that he would never be heard of again. But over Mother and myself hung always the dread that he might be found and all the dreadful business revived once more. Mother never mentioned it, nor did I, but the dread was there.
Then came the first breakdown in Mother's health which necessitated her removal to the country. Luther and Dorinda Rogers were distant relatives of our friend, the lawyer. They owned the little house by the shore at Denboro and the lawyer had visited them occasionally on shooting and fishing trips. They were in need of money, for, as Dorinda said: “We've got two mouths in this family and only one pair of hands. One of the mouths is so big that the hands can't fill it, let alone the mouth that belongs to THEM.” Mother—as Mrs. Paine, a widow—went there first as a boarder, intending to remain but a few months. Dorinda took to her at once, being attracted in the beginning, I think, by the name. “They call you Comfort Paine,” she said, “and you are a comfort to everybody else's pain. Yet you ain't out of pain a minute scurcely, yourself. I never see anything like it. If 'twan't wicked I'd say that name was give you by the Old Scratch himself, as a sort of divilish joke. But anybody can see that the Old Scratch never had anything in common with you, even a hand in the christenin'.”
Dorinda was very kind, and Lute was a never-ending joy in his peculiar way. Mother would have been almost happy in the little Denboro home, if I had been with her. But she was never really happy when we were separated, a condition of mind which grew more acute as her health declined. I came down from the city once every month and those Sundays were great occasions. The Denboro people know me as Roscoe Paine.
For a time Mother seemed to be holding her own. In answer to my questions she always declared that she was ever so much better. But Doctor Quimby, the town physician, looked serious.
“She must be kept absolutely quiet,” he said. “She must not be troubled in any way. Worry or mental distress is what I fear most. Any sudden bad news or shock might—well, goodness knows what effect it might have. She must not be worried. Ros—” after one has visited Denboro five times in succession he is generally called by his Christian name—“Ros, if you've got any worries you keep 'em to yourself.”
I had worries, plenty of them. Our little fortune, saved, as we thought, from the wreck, suffered a severe shrinkage. A considerable portion of it, as the lawyers discovered, was involved and belonged to the creditors. I said nothing to Mother about this: she supposed that we had a sufficient income for our needs, even without my salary. Without telling her I gave up our city apartment, stored our furniture, and took a room in a boarding-house. I was learning the banking business, was trusted with more and more responsibility, and believed my future was secure. Then came the final blow.
I saw the news in the paper when I went out to lunch. “Embezzler and His Companion Caught in Rio Janeiro. He Commits Suicide When Notified of His Arrest.” These headlines stared at me as I opened the paper at the restaurant table. My father had shot himself when the police came. I read it with scarcely more than a vague feeling of pity for him. It was of Mother that I thought. The news must be kept from her. If she should hear of it! What should I do? I went first of all to the lawyer's office: he was out of town for the day. I wandered up and down the streets for an hour. Then I went back to the bank. There I found a telegram from Doctor Quimby: “Mrs. Paine very ill. Come on first train.” I knew what it meant. Mother had heard the news; the shock which the doctor dreaded had had its effect.
I reached Denboro the next morning. Lute met me at the station. From his disjointed and lengthy story I gathered that Mother had been “feelin' fust-rate for her” until the noon before. “I come back from the post-office,” said Lute, “and I was cal'latin' to read the newspaper, but Dorindy had some everlastin' chore or other for me to do—I believe she thinks 'em up in her sleep—and I left the paper on the dinin'-room table and went out to the barn. Dorindy she come along to boss me, as usual. When we went back to the house there was Mrs. Comfort on the dinin'-room floor—dead, we was afraid at fust. The paper was alongside of her, so we judge she was just a-goin' to read it when she was took. The doctor says it's a paralysis or appleplexy or somethin'. We carried her into the bedroom, but she ain't spoke sence.”
She did not speak for weeks and when she did it was to ask for me. She called my name over and over again and, if I left her, even for a moment, she grew so much worse that the doctor forbade my going back to the city. I obtained a leave of absence from the bank for three months. By that time she was herself, so far as her reason was concerned, but very weak and unable to bear the least hint of disturbance or worry. She must not be moved, so Doctor Quimby said, and he held out no immediate hope of her recovering the use of her limbs. “She will be confined to her bed for a long time,” said the doctor, “and she is easy only when you are here. If you should go away I am afraid she might die.” I did not go away. I gave up my position in the bank and remained in Denboro.
At the end of the year I bought the Rogers house and land, moved a portion of our furniture down there, sold the rest, and resigned myself to a period of idleness in the country. Dorinda I hired as housekeeper, and when Dorinda accepted the engagement she threw in Lute, so to speak, for good measure.
And here I have been ever since. At first I looked upon my stay in Denboro as a sort of enforced vacation, which was to be, of course, only temporary. But time went on and Mother's condition continued unchanged. She needed me and I could not leave her. I fished and, shot and sailed and loafed, losing ambition and self-respect, aware that the majority of the village people considered me too lazy to earn a living, and caring little for their opinion. At first I had kept up a hit or miss correspondence with one or two of my associates in the bank, but after a while I dropped even this connection with the world. I was ashamed to have my former acquaintances know what I had become, and they, apparently, were quite willing to forget me. I expected to live and die in Denboro, and I faced the prospect with indifference.
The summer people, cottagers and boarders, I avoided altogether and my only friend, and I did not consider him that, was George Taylor, the Denboro bank cashier. He was fond of salt-water and out-door sports and we, occasionally enjoyed them together.
Thanks to the lawyer, our names had been scarcely mentioned in the papers at the time of my father's death. No one in the village knew our identity or our story. And, because I knew that Mother would worry if she were told, I kept from her the fact that our little income was but half of what it had been. Our wants were few, and if my clothes were no longer made by the best tailors, if they were ready-made and out-of-date and lacked pressing, they were whole, at all events, because Dorinda was a tip-top mender. In fact, I had forgotten they were out-of-date until the sight of the immaculately garbed young chap in the automobile brought the comparison between us to my mind.
But now, as I sat on the wash-bench, thinking of all this, I looked down at my baggy trousers and faded waistcoat with disgust. One of the surest signs of the loss of self-respect is a disregard of one's personal appearance. I looked like a hayseed—not the independent countryman who wears old clothes on week days from choice and is proudly conscious of a Sunday suit in the closet—but that other variety, the post-office and billiard-room idler who has reached the point of utter indifference, is too shiftless to care. Captain Jed was not so far wrong, after all—Lute Rogers and I were birds of a feather in more ways than one.
No wonder that girl in the auto had looked at me as if I were something too contemptible for notice. Yet I hated her for that look. I had behaved like a boor, of course. Because I was a failure, a country loafer with no prospect of ever being anything else, because I could not ride in automobiles and others could—these were no good reasons for insulting strangers more fortunate than I. Yet I did hate that girl. Just then I hated all creation, especially that portion of it which amounted to anything.
I took the letter from my pocket and read it again. “I should like to see you . . . on a matter of business.” What business could “Yours truly, James W. Colton” have with me? And Captain Jed also had talked business. I supposed that I had given up business long ago and for good; now, all at once, it seemed to be hunting me. Well, all the hunting should be on its side.
At another time I might have treated the great Colton's “summons to court” as a joke. I might, like Mother, have regarded the curtness of the command and its general tone of taking my prompt obedience for granted as an expression of the Wall Street magnate's habit of mind, and nothing more. He was used to having people jump when he snapped his fingers. But now it made me angry. I sympathized with Dean and Alvin Baker. The possession of money did not necessarily imply omnipotence. This was Cape Cod, not New York. His Majesty might, as Captain Jed put it, have blown his Imperial nose, but I, for one, wouldn't “lay in a supply of handkerchiefs”—not yet.
I heard a rustle in the bushes and, turning my head, saw Lute coming along the path. He was walking fast—fast for him, that is—and seemed to be excited. His excitement, however, did not cause him to forget prudence. He looked carefully about to be sure his wife was not in sight, before he spoke.
“Dorindy ain't been here sence I've been gone, has she?” was his first question.
“I guess not,” said I. “She has been in the house since I got back. But I don't know how long you've been gone.”
“Only a few minutes. I—I just stepped over 'cross the Lane for a jiffy, that's all. Say, by time; them Coltons must have money!”
“That's a habit of millionaires, I believe.”
“Hey? What do you mean by that? If they didn't have money they couldn't be millionaires, could they? How'd you like to be a millionaire, Ros?”
“I don't know. I never tried.”
“By time! I'D like to try a spell. I've been over lookin' 'round their place. You never see such a place! Why, their front doorstep's big as this yard, pretty nigh.”
“Does it have to be raked?” I asked.
“Raked! Whoever heard of rakin' a doorstep?”
“Give it up! But it does seem to me that I have heard of raking a yard. I think Dorinda mentioned that, didn't she?”
Lute looked at me: then he hurried over and picked up the rake which was lying near the barn, a pile—a very small pile—of chips and leaves beside it.
“When did she mention it?” he asked.
“A week ago, I think, was the first time. She has referred to it occasionally since. She was mentioning it to you when I went up town this morning. I heard her.”
Lute looked relieved. “Oh, THEN!” he said. “I thought you meant lately. Well, I'm rakin' it, ain't I? Say, Ros,” he added, eagerly, “did you go to the post-office when you was uptown? Was there a letter there for you?”
“What makes you think there was?”
“Asa Peters' boy, the bow-legged one, told me. The chauffeur, the feller that pilots the automobiles, asked him where the post-office was and he see the address on the envelope. He said the letter was for you. I told him he was lyin'—”
“What in the world did you tell him that for?” I interrupted. I had known Lute a long time, but he sometimes surprised me, even yet.
“'Cause he is, nine times out of ten,” replied Lute, promptly. “You never see such a young-one for dodgin' the truth. Why, one time he told his grandmother, Asa's ma, I mean, that—”
“What did he say about the letter?”
“Said 'twas for you. And the chauffeur said Mr. Colton told him to mail it right off. 'Twan't for you, was it, Ros?”
“Yes.”
“It WAS! Well, by time! What did a man like Mr. Colton write to you about?”
Among his other lackings Lute was conspicuously short of tact. This was no time for him to ask me such a question, especially to emphasize the “you.”
“Why shouldn't he write to me?” I asked, tartly.
“But—but HIM—writin' to YOU!”
“Humph! Even a god stoops once in a while. Read your mythology, Lute.”
“Hey? Say, look here, what are you swearin' about?”
“Swearing? Oh, that's all right. The god I referred to was a heathen one.”
“Well, it's a good thing Dorindy didn't hear you; she's down on swearin', heathen or any other kind. But what did Mr. Colton write to you for?”
“He says he wants to see me.”
“See you? What for?”
“Don't know. Perhaps he wants to borrow money.”
“Borrow—! I believe you're crazy!”
“No, I'm tolerably sane. There! there! don't look at me like that. Here's his letter. Read it, if you want to.”
Lute's fingers were so eager to grasp that letter that they were all thumbs. He dropped it on the grass, picked it up with as much care as if it was a diamond, and holding it a foot from his nose—he had broken his spectacles and was afraid to ask Dorinda for the money to have them repaired—he spelt it out to the last word.
“Well, by time!” he exclaimed, when he had finished. “He wants to see you at his house this forenoon! And—and—why, the forenoon's all but gone now! What are you settin' here for?”
“Well, I thought I should enjoy watching you rake the yard. It is a pleasure deferred so far.”
“Watchin' me—! Roscoe Paine, you are out of your head! Ain't you goin' to see him?”
“No.”
“You AIN'T!”
“No.”
“Ros Paine, have you jined in with them darn fools uptown?”
“Who's swearing now? What fools do you mean?”
“Darn ain't swearin'. Dorindy herself says that once in a while. I mean Alvin Baker, and Jed Dean and the rest of 'em. They was goin' on about Mr. Colton last night; said THEY wan't goin' to run at his beck and call. I told 'em, says I, 'You ain't had the chance. You'll run fast enough when you do.'”
“Did you say that to Captain Jed?”
“No-o. I said it to Alvin, but old Jed's just as bad. He's down on anybody that's got more'n he has. But Ros, you ain't foolish enough to side with Jed Dean. Just think! Here's Mr. Colton, richer'n King Solomon and all his glory. He's got servants and butlers and bonds and cowpons and horses and teams and automobiles and—”
I rose from the wash bench.
“I know what he's got, Lute,” I interrupted. “And I know what he hasn't got.”
“What? Is there anything he ain't got?”
“He hasn't got me—not yet. If he wants to see me he may. I expect to be at home for the next day or two.”
“You don't mean you expect a millionaire like him to come cruisin' after YOU! Well, by time! I think I see him!”
“When you do, let me know,” I said. “I should like to be prepared.”
“Well,—by—time!” said Lute, by way of summing up. I ate dinner with Dorinda. Her husband did not join us. Dorinda paid a visit to the back yard and, seeing how little raking had been done, announced that until the job was finished there would be “no dinner for some folks.” So she and I ate and Lute raked, under protest, and vowing that he was so faint and holler he cal'lated to collapse 'most any time.
After the meal was finished I went down to the boathouse. The boathouse was a little building on the beach at the foot of the bluff below the house. It was a favorite resort of mine and I spent many hours there. My eighteen foot motor launch, the Comfort, the one expensive luxury I allowed myself and which I had bought second-hand two years before, was jacked up in the middle of the floor. The engine, which I had taken apart to clean, was in pieces beside it. On the walls hung my two shot guns and my fishing rod. Outside, on the beach, was my flat-bottomed skiff, which I used for rowing about the bay, her oars under the thwarts. In the boathouse was a comfortable armchair and a small shelf of books, novels for the most part. A cheap clock and a broken-down couch, the latter a discard from the original outfit of the cottage, made up the list of furniture.
My idea in coming to the boathouse was to continue my work with the engine. I tried it for a half hour or so and then gave it up. It did not interest me then. I shut the door at the side of the building, that by which I had entered—the big double doors in front I had not opened at all—and, taking a book from the shelf, stretched myself on the couch to read.
The book I had chosen was one belonging to the Denboro Ladies' Library; Miss Almena Doane, the librarian, had recommended it highly, as a “real interesting story, with lots of uplifting thoughts in it.” The thoughts might be uplifting to Almena, but they did not elevate my spirits. As for the story—well, the hero was a young gentleman who was poor but tremendously clever and handsome, and the heroine had eyes “as dark and deep as starlit pools.” The poor but beautiful person met the pool-eyed one at a concert, where he sat, “his whole soul transfigured by the music,” and she had been “fascinated in spite of herself” by the look on his face. I read as far as that and dropped the book in disgust.
After that I must have fallen asleep. What awakened me was a knock on the door. It was Lute, of course. Probably mother wanted me for something or other, and Dorinda had sent her husband to hunt me up.
The knock was repeated.
“Come in,” I said, sleepily.
The door opened and in came, not Lute, but a tall, portly man, with a yachting cap on the back of his gray head, and a cigar in his mouth. He looked at me as I lay on the couch and I lay on the couch and looked at him.
“Afternoon,” he said, curtly. “Is your name Paine?”
I nodded. I was waking rapidly, but I was too astonished to speak.
“Roscoe Paine?”
“Yes.”
“Well, mine's Colton. I sent you a letter this morning. Did you get it?”
I sat up on the couch. Mr. Colton knocked the ashes from his cigar, waited an instant, and then repeated his question.
“Did you get my letter?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh, you did. I was afraid that man of mine might have forgotten to mail it.”
“No, I got it. Won't you—er—won't you sit down?” He pulled the armchair toward him and sat down. I noticed that he had a habit of doing things quickly. His sentences were short and to the point and he spoke and acted like one accustomed to having his own way. He crossed his knees and looked about the little building.
“It is a pleasant day,” I observed, for the sake of saying something. He did not seem to hear me, or, if he did, he was not interested in the weather. For my part I found the situation embarrassing. I knew what his next question would be, and I did not know how to answer. Sure enough, he asked it.
“I wrote you to come over to my place this forenoon,” he said. “You didn't come.”
“No. I—”
“Why not?”
Here was the issue joined. Here, if ever, was the opportunity to assert my independence a la Jed Dean and Alvin Baker. But to assert it now, after he had done the unexpected, after the mountain had come to Mahomet, seemed caddish and ridiculous. So I temporized, weakly.
“I didn't read your letter until about noon,” I said.
“I see. Well, I waited until two o'clock and then I decided to hunt you up. I called at your house. The woman there said you were down here. Your mother?”
“No.” My answer was prompt and sharp enough this time. It was natural, perhaps, that he should presume Dorinda to be my mother, but I did not like it.
He paid absolutely no attention to the tone of my reply or its curtness. He did not refer to Dorinda again. She might have been my wife or my great-aunt for all he cared.
“This your workshop?” he asked, abruptly. Then, nodding toward the dismembered engine, “What are you? a boat builder?”
“No, not exactly.”
“What's the price of a boat like that?” indicating the Comfort with a kick in her direction.
“About two hundred and fifty dollars, I believe,” I answered.
“You believe! Don't you know?”
“No. I bought that boat second-hand.”
He did not refer to the boat again; apparently forgot it altogether. His next move was to rise and turn toward the door. I watched him, wondering what was going to happen next. He had a habit of jumping from one subject to another which was bewildering.
“What's that fellow doing off there?” he asked, suddenly.
I looked where he was pointing.
“That is Zeb Kendrick,” I answered. “He's raking for quahaugs.”
“Raking for what hogs?”
“Quahaugs. What you New Yorkers call clams.”
“Oh! Sell 'em, does he?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him to call at my house next time you see him. And for heaven's sake tell him to come to the servants' door. Don't you people down here have any servants' doors to your houses? There have been no less than fifty peddlers on my porch since yesterday and my butler will die of apoplexy if it keeps on. He's a good one, for a wonder, and I don't want to lose him.”
I made no reply to this observation and he did not seem to expect any. He watched Zeb rake for a moment and then he turned back to me.
“Can you come over to my house now?” he asked.
I was not expecting this and again I did not have an answer ready.
“Can you?” he went on. “I've got a business deal to make with you and I'd rather make it there. I've got a lot of carpenters and painters at work and they ask me ten questions a minute. They are unnecessary questions but if I don't answer them the fellows are sure to make some fool mistake or other. They need a governess. If you'll come over with me I'll be in touch with them and you and I can talk just as well. Can come, can't you?”
I did not know what to say. I wanted to say no, that if he had any business with me it could be discussed in that boathouse. I did not like his manner, yet I had a feeling that it was his usual one and that he had not meant to be rude. And I could think of no good reason for not going with him.
“You can come, can't you?” he repeated.
“I suppose I can. But—”
“Of course if you're too busy to leave—”
I remembered the position he had found me in and I rather think I had turned red. He did not smile, but there was a sort of grim twinkle in his eyes.
“I'll come,” I said.
“Much obliged. I won't keep you long. Come on.”
He led the way and I followed, rebellious, and angry, not so much with him as with myself. I wished now that I had gone over to the Colton place when I first received the summons to court, instead of making proclamations of defiance to mother and Lute Rogers. This seemed such a complete backdown. As we passed the house I saw Lute peering from the barn. I devoutly hoped he might not see me, but he did. His mouth opened and he stared. Then, catching my eye, he winked triumphantly. I wanted to punch his head.
The King of New York walked briskly on in silence until we were just at the edge of the grove by the Shore Lane. Then he stopped and turned to me.
“You own all this land, don't you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Humph! Get a good view from here.”
I admitted that the view was good. At that particular point it embraced nearly the whole of the bay in front, and a large portion of the village at the side.
He waved his hand toward the cluster of houses.
“There are eighteen hundred people in this town, they tell me,” he said. “Permanent residents, I mean. What do they all do?”
“Do?”
“Yes. How do they get a living? They must get it somehow. In the regular summer resorts they squeeze it out of the city people, I know that. But there aren't so many cottagers and boarders here. What do you all do for a living?”
I told him that most of masculine Denboro fished or farmed or kept store.
“Which do you do?” he asked. “You said you weren't a boat-builder.”
“I'm not doing anything at present,” I replied, shortly.
“Out of a job?”
“You might call it that. Is this a part of the business you wished to see me about, Mr. Colton?”
I was boiling inwardly and a little of the heat was expressed in my tone. I don't know whether he took the hint or merely lost interest in the subject. At any rate his reply was a brief “No,” and we continued our walk.
As we reached the Shore Lane he paused again, and I thought he was about to speak. He did not, however, and we crossed the boundary line of my property and entered the Colton grounds. As we drew nearer to the house I was surprised to see how large it was. When the Atwaters owned it I was an occasional caller there, for old Major Atwater was fond of shooting and sometimes borrowed my decoys. But, since it changed hands, I had not been nearer to it than the Lane. With the new wing and the other additions it was enormous. It fairly reeked of money, though, so far as I was a judge, the taste shown in rebuilding and decorating was good. We turned the corner, where Asa Peters, the head carpenter, came hurrying up. Asa looked surprised enough to see me in company with his employer and regarded me wonderingly. “Mr. Colton,” he said, “I wanted to ask you about them skylights.” I stepped back out of hearing, but I inferred from Colton's actions that the question was another one of the “unnecessary” ones he had so scornfully referred to in the boathouse.
“Jackass!” he exclaimed, as he rejoined me. I judged he was classifying Asa, but, if so, he did not trouble to lower his voice. “Come on, Paine,” he added, and we passed a long line of windows, hung with costly curtains, and stepped up on a handsome Colonial portico before two big doors.
The doors were opened by an imposing personage in dark blue and brass buttons, who bowed profoundly before Colton and regarded me with condescending superiority. This personage, whom I recognized, from Alvin's description, as the “minister-lookin'” butler, led us through a hall about as large as our sitting-room, dining-room and kitchen combined, but bearing no other resemblance to these apartments, and opened another door, through which, bowing once more, he ushered us. Then he closed the door, leaving himself, to my relief, outside. It had been a long time since I was waited upon by a butler and I found this specimen rather overpowering.
The room we were in was the library, and, though it was bigger and far more sumptuous than the library I remembered so well as a boy, the sight of the books in their cases along the walls gave me a feeling almost of homesickness. My resentment against my millionaire neighbor increased. Why should he and his have everything, and the rest of us be deprived of the little we once had?
Colton seated himself in a leather upholstered chair and waved his hand toward another.
“Sit down,” he said. He took a cigar from his pocket. “Smoke?” he asked.
I was a confirmed smoker, but I was not going to smoke one of his cigars—not then.
“No thank you,” said I. He did not comment on my refusal, but lit the cigar himself, from the stump of his former one. Then he crossed his legs and proceeded, with characteristic abruptness, to his subject.
“Paine,” he began, “you own this land next to me, you say. Your property ends at the fence this side of that road we just crossed, doesn't it?”
“It ends where yours begins,” I announced.
“Yes. Just this side of that road.”
“Of the Shore Lane. It isn't a road exactly.”
“I don't care what you call it. Road or lane or cow-path. It ends there?”
“Yes.”
“And it IS your land? It belongs to you, personally, all of it, free and clear?”
“Why—yes; it does.” I could not see what business of his my ownership of that land might be.
“All right. I asked that because, if it wasn't yours, if it was tied up or mortgaged in any way, it might complicate matters. But it isn't.”
“No.”
“Good! Then we can get down to brass tacks and save time. I want a piece of that land.”
I looked at him.
“You want—?” I repeated, slowly.
“I want a strip of your land. Want to buy it, of course. I don't expect you to give it to me. What's it worth, by the acre, say?”
I did not answer. All at once I was beginning to see a light. Captain Jed Dean's mysterious conversation at the post-office was beginning to lose some of its mystery.
“Well?” asked Colton, impatiently. Then, without waiting longer, he added:
“By the way, before you name a figure, answer me one more question. That road—or lane, or whatever it is—that is yours, too? Doesn't belong to the town?”
The light was growing more brilliant. I could see breakers ahead.
“No,” I replied, slowly. “It is a private way. It belongs to me.”
“Good! Well, what's that land of yours worth by the acre?”
I shook my head. “I scarcely know,” I said. “I've never figured it that way.”
“I don't care how you figure it. Here, let's get down to a business proposition. I want to buy a strip of that land from the Lower Road—that's what you call the one above here, isn't it?—to the beach. The strip I want is about three hundred feet wide, for a guess. It extends from my fence to the other side of that grove by the bluff. What will you sell it for?”
The breakers were close aboard. However, I dodged them momentarily.
“Why do you want to buy?” I asked.
“For reasons.”
“I should think you had land enough already.”
“I thought I had, but it seems I haven't. Well, what's your price for that strip?”
“Mr. Colton, I—I'm afraid—”
“Never mind that. I suppose you're afraid you'll make the price too low. Now, see here, I'm a busy man. I haven't time to do any bargaining. Name your price and, if it's anywhere within reason, we won't haggle. I expect to pay more than anyone else would. That's part of my fine for being a city man and not a native. Gad! the privilege is worth the money. I'll pay the fine. What's the price?”
“But why do you want to buy?”
“For reasons of my own, I tell you. They haven't anything to do with your selling.”
“I'm not so sure.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That strip takes in the Shore Lane, Mr. Colton.”
“I know it.”
“And, if you buy, I presume the Lane will be closed.”
He looked at me, surprised, and, I thought, a little annoyed.
“Well?” he said; “suppose it is?”
“But it will be, won't it?”
“You bet your life it will! What of it?”
“Then I don't know that I care to sell.”
He leaned back in his chair.
“You don't care to sell!” he repeated, slowly. “What the devil do you mean by that?”
“What I said. And, besides, Mr. Colton, I—”
He interrupted me.
“Why don't you care to sell?” he demanded. “The land is no good to you, is it?”
“Not much. No.”
“Humph! Are you so rich that you've got all the money you want?”
I was angry all through. I rose from my chair.
“Good day, Mr. Colton,” I said.
“Here!” he shouted. “Hold on! Where are you going?”
“I can't see that there is any use of our talking further.”
“No use? Why—There! there! sit down. It's none of my business how rich you are, and I beg your pardon. Sit down. Sit down, man, I tell you!”
I sat down, reluctantly. He threw his cigar, which had gone out, into the fireplace and lit another.
“Say,” he said, “you surprise me, Paine. What do you mean by saying you won't sell that land? You don't know what I'll pay for it yet.”
“No, I don't.”
“Then how do you know you won't sell it? I never had anything yet—except my wife and family—that I wouldn't sell for a price. Look here! I haven't got time to do any Down-East horse-jockeying. I'll make you an offer. I'll give you five hundred dollars cash for that strip of land. What do you say?”
I didn't say anything. Five hundred dollars was a generous offer. I couldn't help thinking what Mother and I might do with that five hundred dollars.
“What do you say?” he repeated.
I answered, Yankee fashion, with another question. “Mr. Colton,” I asked, “why do you want to close that Shore Lane?”
“Because I do. What difference does it make to you why I want to close it?”
“That Lane has been used by Denboro people for years. It is almost a public necessity.”
He puffed twice on his cigar before he spoke again. When he did it was in a different tone.
“I see,” he said. “Humph! I see. Paine, does the town pay you rent for the use of that road?”
“No.”
“Has it been bidding to buy it?”
“No.”
“Is any one else after it?”
“No-o. I think not. But—”
“You THINK not. That means you're not sure. You've had a bite somewhere. Somebody has been nibbling at your hook. Well, they've got to bite quick and swallow some to get ahead of me. I want that road closed and I'm going to have it closed, sooner or later. I'd prefer it sooner.”
“But why do you want to close it?”
Before he could answer there came a knock at the door. The butler appeared.
“I beg your pardon, sir—” he began. His master cut him short.
“Tell 'em to wait,” he ordered. “I can't see any one now, Johnson. If it is that damned carpenter he can wait.”
“It isn't the carpenter, sir,” explained Johnson. “It's Mrs. Colton, sir. She wishes to know if you have bought that road. She says three of those 'orrid fishcarts have gone by in the last hour, sir, and they are making her very nervous. That's all, sir.”
“Tell her I've bought it,” snapped the head of the house. “Get out.”
The butler obeyed orders. Colton turned to me.
“You heard that, Paine,” he said. “That's my reason, the principal one. I bought this place principally on account of Mrs. Colton's health. The doctors said she needed quiet and rest. I thought she could have them here—God knows the place looked forsaken enough—but it appears she can't. Whenever she or I sit on the veranda or at a window we have to watch a procession of jays driving smelly fish carts through that lane of yours, or be stared at by a gang of countrymen hanging over the fence. It's a nuisance. It is bad enough for me or my daughter and our guests, but it will be the ruination of my wife's nerves, and I can't stand for that. You see the position I'm in. You heard what I told that butler. I said I had bought the road. You wouldn't make me a liar, would you? I'll give you five hundred for that bunch of sand. You couldn't get more for it if you sold it by the pound, like tea. Say yes, and close the deal.”
I shook my head.
“I understand your position, Mr. Colton,” I said, “but I can't say yes. Not now, at any rate.”
“Why not? Isn't five hundred enough?”
“It's a good offer.”
“Then why not accept it?”
“Because, if I were certain that I wanted to sell, I could not accept any offer just now.”
“Why not? See here! are you afraid the town will be sore because the road is closed?”
“It would be a great inconvenience to them.”
“It's a greater one to me as it is. Can you afford to be a philanthropist? Are you one of those public-spirited citizens we read about?”
He was sneering now, and my anger, which had lessened somewhat when he spoke of his wife's ill health, was rising again.
“Are you?” he repeated.
“I don't know as to that. But, as I said a while ago, Mr. Colton, I couldn't sell that land to you now.”
“Why not?”
“Because, if there were no other reason, I promised not to sell it without telling another person first.”
He threw down his cigar and stood up. I rose also.
“I see,” he said, with sarcasm. “I knew there was something beside public spirit. You think, by hanging off and playing me against this other sucker, you can get a higher price. Well, if that's the game, I'll keep him busy.”
He took out his watch, glanced at it, and thrust it back into his pocket.
“I've wasted time enough over this fool thing,” he declared. “Now that I know what the game is we'll talk to the point. It's highway robbery, but I might have expected to be robbed. I'll give you six hundred for that land.”
I did not answer. I was holding my temper by main strength and I could not trust myself to speak.
“Well?” he sneered. “That shakes your public spirit some, hey? What do you say?”
“No,” I answered, and started for the door.
“What!” he could hardly believe his ears. “By the Lord Harry! the fellow is crazy. Six hundred and fifty then, you infernal robber.”
“No.”
“NO! Say, what in thunder do you mean?”
“I mean that you may go to the devil,” I retorted, and reached for the door knob.
But before my fingers touched it there was the sound of laughter and voices in the hall. The knob was turned from without. I stepped back and to one side involuntarily, as the door opened and into the library came, not the butler, but a young lady, a girl in an automobile coat and bonnet. And, following her, a young man.
“Father,” said the young lady, “Johnson says you've bought that horrid road. I'm so glad! When did you do it?”
“Congratulations, Mr. Colton,” said the young man. “We just passed a cart full of something—seaweed, I believe it was—as we came along with the car. Oscar had to slow down to squeeze by, and we certainly were swept by ocean breezes. By Jove! I can smell them yet. I—”
The young lady interrupted him.
“Hush, Victor,” she said. “I beg your pardon, Father. I thought you were alone. Victor, we're intruding.”
The open door had partially screened me from the newcomers. But Colton, red and wrathful, had not ceased to glare in my direction and she, following his gaze, saw me. She did not recognize me, I think—probably I had not made sufficient impression upon her mind even for casual remembrance—but I recognized her. She was the girl with the dark eyes, whose look of contemptuous indifference had so withered my self-esteem. And her companion was the young chap who, from the tonneau of the automobile that morning, had inquired the way to Bayport.
The young man turned lazily. “Are we?” he said. “I—What! Why, Mabel, it's the humorist!”
Then she recognized me. I could feel the blood climbing from my toes to the roots of my hair. I was too astonished and chagrined to speak or even move, though I wanted to move very much indeed. She looked at me and I at her. Then she turned coldly away.
“Come, Victor,” she said.
But Victor was his own blase self. It took more than a trifle to shake his calm. He laughed.
“It's the humorist,” he repeated. “Reuben, how are you?”
Colton regarded the three of us with amazement.
“What?” he began. “Mabel, do you—”
But I had recovered my powers of locomotion. I was on my way out of that library.
“Here!” shouted Colton. “Stop!”
I did not stop. Feeling as I did at that moment it would have been distinctly unpleasant for the person who tried to stop me. The girl was in my way and, as I approached, she drew her skirts aside. No doubt it was my imagination which made her manner of doing it seem like an insult, but, imagination or reality, it was the one thing necessary to clench my resolution. Now when she looked at me I returned the look with interest. I strode through the doorway and across the hall. The butler would have opened the outer door for me, but I opened it myself to the imminent danger of his dignified nose. As I stepped from the portico I heard behind me a roar from Big Jim Colton and a shout of laughter from Victor.
I walked home at top speed. Only once did I look back. That was just as I was about to enter the grove on the other side of the Shore Lane. Then I turned and saw, at the big window at the end of the “Newport villa,” a group of three staring in my direction: Colton, his daughter and that cub Victor. The distance was too great to see the expression of their faces, but I knew that two of them, at least, were laughing—laughing at me.
I did not laugh.
Lute was waiting for me by the gate and ran to meet me. He was wild with excitement.
“He came after you, didn't he?” he cried, grabbing at my coat sleeve. “You went over to his house with him, didn't you! I see you and at fust I couldn't scurcely believe it. What did he want? What did he say?”
I did not answer. He ran along beside me, still clinging to my sleeve.
“What did he want?” he repeated. “What did he say to you? What did you say to him? Tell a feller, can't you?”
“I told him to go to the devil,” I answered, savagely.
Lute let go of my sleeve.
“You—you—By time, you're stark loony!” he gasped; and collapsed against the gate post.
I went into the house, up the back stairs to my room, and shut the door.