CHAPTER VIIIn New York
MOST of New York—that is, all those more fortunate individuals who were not actually tied to the city by the necessities of business, were somewhere on the seashore, or up in the hills, seeking cool, bracing air with which to sooth their jaded nerves. The heat was torrid. The noise and the city odours burdened life to an almost insupportable extent. There was no shade anywhere that could help things, and not a breath of air, except that set in motion by artificial means in the dwellings, was stirring to make things easier. The sun scorched down on the immaculate streets from early dawn to late evening. And even as late as nearing midnight the furious mercury registered anything up to eighty degrees of humid heat.
It was the one time in the year when the bustle and rush of the great hotels was at its lowest ebb. The telephone boys had time to sweat at leisure. The head-porters had breathing space from their everlasting task of booking railroad “reservations” for their transient custom. Even the waiters were able to give a personal touch of interest to their guests. But for all the greater ease of service the leisure thus obtained was more than counter-balanced by the discomfort of the appalling humidity.
At the Seraphim Hotel the oval of the great dining-hall was almost empty. An army of waiters stood ready to advance upon their customers. But the customers were few, and many of the beautifully appointed tables had remained unoccupied for the day’s lunch. On the raised amphitheatre which circled the outer extremities of thehall only about half a dozen tables were occupied, while in the central space one solitary couple sat lunching.
It was a man and a woman. The girl was exquisitely gowned in a quiet, unassuming fashion. A woman might have appraised the costliness of her equipment at its true value. To a man she appeared to be just well turned out in something that was sufficiently diaphanous for the temperature all must endure in July in New York. But her hat—well, even a man could not have made any miscalculation as to her hat. It was exquisite, and added a wealth of charm to the beautiful, smiling face beneath it.
She was regarding her companion with almost hungry interest. Her blue eyes were gravely smiling, for all a certain anxiety was gazing out of them. She was eyeing his well-barbered, snow-white hair that was a never-ending source of admiring concern for her. Then, too, the deeply-lined, clean-shaven face left her not a little troubled. He was dressed well in well-cut summer suiting, and his broad shoulders and strong, shapely hands told of work they could never have encountered in New York.
The man had been talking for some time in a tone which was never permitted to reach beyond his companion’s ears, and the twinkle of a smile lit eyes that were twin in colour to those he was gazing into.
He had been recounting the details of a long story that held his companion completely enthralled. There were moments when he had to break off to remind her of the food that no longer made any claim upon her appetite. And as he finished a deep sigh proclaimed the breathless interest in which the girl had been held.
“It’s all amazing, dreadful,” she breathed, in a suppressed tone. “If it weren’t you, Jim, sitting there telling me I could never have believed it. I just hadn’t a notion when I got your letter asking for those five thousanddollars. You never gave me an inkling. You never said a thing. And now you tell me all this.”
She made a gesture that expressed her amazement.
“Eddie hunted for killing the man who had broken up his home-life. Poor, dear, weak, foolish Mary gone—goodness knows where. And you, my dear old brother and best of all playmates, convicted and sentenced for—for—as a price for that fool loyalty which has always been your besetting curse. The disaster of it is unspeakable. It’s—it’s dreadful. And look at you,” she went on, with that final touch of the woman which she found impossible to resist. “Your hair snow-white, and not a single curl remaining. Your poor thin face lined like a man of more than twice your years. And you have come here with—with a price on your head. Jim—Jim, you must get away. You must get away to a place of safety. Your money’s been safe with me. I’ll hand it over. And you must get away.”
Jim Pryse’s eyes twinkled humorously.
“That’s what I came here for.”
“That’s why you came here—for safety?” The girl’s eyes widened. “You must be crazy.”
Jim shook his head.
“Not a thing. But smile, Blanche. Get that look of worry out of your dandy eyes. There are waiters around.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders a little helplessly. But she smiled. And somehow the smile was unforced.
“Oh, Jim, you’re just the same. Just the same—what shall I say?—devil-may-care you’ve always been. You’ve told me enough to make me realise something of the awful thing you’ve been through. And your beautiful white hair, and those cruel lines down around your mouth and cheeks, tell of what you have not told. What are you going to do?”
“Do?”
Jim sat back in his chair and laughed happily as the waiter approached with twopêches Melbas. He continued to smile while the man removed the plates and set the sweets before them. Then, as he withdrew, his smile resolved itself into that twinkle which was his natural expression of good-humour.
“Why, I guess there’s a whole heap of things I could do,” he went on quietly. “But I’m only going to do just one of ’em. You know, Blanche, it’s a pretty terrible thing when a feller gets bug on notions of the welfare of his fellow-man. It’s the sort of craziness that sets a boy yearning to get after folks and things with a club. He sort of sees red most every time he hears some fool kid won’t eat its bottle right, and the birch in a school-house is liable to set him shooting up Presidents. Which mostly means the bottom’s dropped right out of his sense of proportion, and his backbone’s disintegrated in the juices of a mess of sloppy sympathy. Well, there’s nothing much wrong with my backbone yet, and my sense of proportion seems in decent shape. All that’s happened is that I’ve got a notion, and, ifyoufeel good about it, I’m going to work it out. If it works good I’ll be mighty pleased, and’ll be feeling like some commercial philanthropist who reads a news-sheet’s account of his good works. If it doesn’t, why, I’ll throw in my hand, and start a fresh deal with the same deck of cards.”
The man paused for a moment, and his sister shook her head admonishingly.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Jim, any more than I shall ever understand our Eddie,” Blanche said. “Maybe I lack a sense of humour. Maybe, being a woman, I haven’t a notion beyond the things I was raised to. Why—why had you two boys to quit business right here in New York and get out to the—tough countries? You had ample here. Our folks left us all three the same. And the business was good. No, you sell up and get out.I know you’ve made a big fortune in gold, and Eddie was doing well in Greenwood. But—but all this terrible disaster could have been avoided. All this——”
“No, it couldn’t, Sis.” Jim shook his head and laughed. “If we’d stayed around we’d have got mixed up with things, anyway. These things don’t happen because. They happen anyway. A feller’s going to get the marked-out tally someway. Fate’s got just so many kicks for every feller born. And he’s going to get ’em. Do you fancy hearing my plan?”
“Of course I do, Jim. I’ve been waiting. And I want you to know that there isn’t a thing in the world you can ask me that I won’t do for you.”
The man chuckled softly as he ate the last of his sweet.
“Fine,” he cried. “That fool loyalty again. Only it’s you this time, Sis.”
The girl smiled back at him.
“Don’t be absurd,” she said gently. “Get on with the thing I want to hear.”
“Well, for all I’ve got a million or so gold in my bank-roll I guess I was right down and out after getting clear of that red-coated boy, and looked like leaving my miserable bones feed for the coyotes. It was then I found it—in those two boys. One was a pretty tough, straight-thinking French-Canadian farmer, and the other was a broth of an Irish boy, whose only worry in life seemed to be he was scared to death of liquor, and scared worse that some time prohibition would make him have to live dry. Those two boys knew me for an escaped convict. Yet they kept me alive, fed me, and helped me all they knew to make a getaway. And they both did it for nix, and under threat of penitentiary for themselves. Say, those boys had a cargo of sheer sympathy and humanity aboard them enough to stock a heavenly department store, and the whole thing has given me a hunch. That hunch says I’m going to stake my last ounce of gold to help other ‘down-and-outs’the same as they helped me. And I’ve come along now because I kind of hope you’ll help me. You see, a boy can do ordinary things. But when it comes to the real good things of life the girl’s got him beat out of sight.”
“There isn’t need to ask me, Jim,” the girl said, in a voice in which emotion came near to robbing it of steadiness. Then she laughed in self-defence. “You see, I’m one of those fool women who haven’t a notion beyond the men-folk belonging to them. My brothers have always been first with me. And now I sort of feel they’re more first than ever.”
Jim sat silent for a moment. His eyes were hidden as he contemplated the table. However he had been hit by the humanity and sympathy of those others, the utter and complete self-sacrifice of this sister, who dwelt in all the comfort and even luxury of her great home city, left him speechless for the moment.
At last he looked up. And when he did so the humour had faded out of his eyes. It had been replaced by a smile that was full of a world of tender gratitude.
“That makes me feel good, Sis,” he said quietly. “It also makes me feel bad. You see, you don’t know the thing I’m going to ask you.”
He glanced about the room. Then his gaze came back to the fair-haired creature who was only midway between twenty and thirty, and who he proposed to expose to a life the roughness of which would test her to the uttermost.
“Not ask, Jim.”
The smile accompanying her denial was dazzling.
“No.”
Suddenly Jim spread out his strong hands.
“How would you fancy coming right out West to the heart of the Canadian Rockies?” he began. “How’d you fancy setting up a swell home with me there? There’s no stores or subways there. There’s no Fifth Avenue, ortheatres, or bridge parties, or dances. The only noise and bustle you’ll get there is when the wind howls down off the glaciers. There won’t be a thing to worry over but the cold, and snows, and blizzards in winter, and the storms and wash-outs in summer. Then there’ll be the buzzy flies, and the crazy skitters, and the voice of the timber wolves, and the yowl of the coyotes who missed feeding my bones. Maybe you won’t locate Eddie there, but there’ll be other folk who aren’t yearning for the sun of civilisation to shine on them. There won’t be any steam heat, and lots of other things you’re used to. But there’ll be cattle, and horses, and a real live trade, and work that’ll leave you with a joy of life and health you can’t ever get in a city. I’ve got to do something for the ‘down-and-outs.’ I’m filled right up to the neck with a yearning to help the way I was helped. I’ve found the wonderful, sweet grass Valley of Hope. And I want to set its gateway wide open for those folk who haven’t found it. Will you come along, Sis?”
“Why, I’m crazy to.”
The man turned abruptly and hailed the waiter. When the bill was settled he pushed back his chair.
“Come along, Sis,” he said, in a tone that thanked the girl infinitely better than words could have done. “It’s hot enough here with the fans going. Maybe Central Park’ll be a foretaste of hell about now. Any way, we’ll chance it. We’ll take a crawl out there in the open, with that great old sun beating us over the head, and I’ll tell you all the details of the thing I’ve set my heart upon. And we’ll plan it out together.”