On the morning following his discomfiture Richard Dodd posted himself in a little tobacco-shop opposite the Trelawny Apartment-house. Lurking behind cigar-boxes in the window, he held the door of the house under surly espionage. It was plain to the shopkeeper that “the gent had made a night of it.” Dodd's eyes were heavy, his face was flushed, and he lighted one cigarette after another with shaky hands.
Shortly before nine o'clock Kate Kilgour came out and walked down the avenue on the way to her work. Dodd stared after her until she was out of sight. Shame and anger and desire mingled in the steady gaze he leveled on her; in her crisp freshness she represented both the longed-for and the unattainable. He was conscious of a new sentiment in regard to her. In the past his impatience had been tempered by the comforting knowledge that she had promised herself to him—that she was his to own, to possess after a bit of tantalizing procrastination. Now he was not at all sure of her. He had been just a bit patronizing in the past—his successes with women had inflated his conceit—he had exhibited a rather careless air of proprietorship—his manner had said to her and to others, “This is mine; look at it!” But now when he had watched her out of sight jealousy, anger, the sour conviction that he had forfeited her regard combined to make him desperate, and the excesses of the night before kindled a flame which heated all his evil passions.
He threw away his cigarette, cursed roundly aloud, and hurried across the street into the Trelawny.
When Mrs. Kilgour admitted him to her suite she clung to the door-casing, exhibiting much trepidation.
He stepped in, closed the door, and put his back against it.
“Have you got those hysterics out of you so that you can listen to me and then talk sense?” he demanded, coarsely.
She went into her sitting-room and he followed, muttering:
“No wonder you ran away from me last night—no wonder you didn't have the face to stay and take what you deserve. How in tophet I ever allowed you to plan and manage I can't understand.”
“You asked me to,” she faltered.
“I didn't ask you to rig up a dirty conspiracy to queer me.”
“Richard, you are not yourself. You have been drinking!” She tried to exhibit protesting indignation and failed. “Come to me when you are yourself.”
“There's no more of this to-morrow business goes with me, Mrs. Kilgour. I'll admit that you're Kate's mother. But just now you are something else. You have tried to do me, and nobody gets by with that stuff—man, woman, or child. We'll have our settlement here and now.”
“I did the best I could,” she wailed.
“Out of what damnation novel did you get that idea?” he raged.
“It seemed to be a good plan, Richard. I swear by everything sacred I thought it would come out all right. Don't rave at me.” Her voice sunk to an appealing whisper. She picked up a book from her table. “If you will only listen—”
“So you did get it out of a novel! My God! what have your fool ideas done to me?”
“How do you dare to talk to Kate's mother like that?”
“I am not talking to Kate's mother, I tell you! I'm talking to a woman who has put me into a hell on earth. I'm talking to you, Mrs. Kilgour, and you don't know the whole story yet.”
“All my life it has been the same—only trouble and sorrow and to be misunderstood.” She began to sob.
“Is there anything in that novel about ringing in an iceman to break up a marriage? I say it was all a conspiracy. You didn't intend to be square. You intended to rig a scheme so that you could duck out from under. You have always done that, Mrs. Kilgour.”
“I had nothing to do with that man coming in.”
“Don't try to fool me any more. You told me to come, didn't you? You must have told some yarn to your daughter to have her come.”
“I did—it was all—”
“And then you told that plug-ugly to come in, too, and break it up so as to queer me. Why did I ever fall for such lunacy? If I hadn't been desperate I would never have let you drag me into such a devilish scheme. But now you have got to do your part to square me. It's going to be straight talk from now on, Mrs. Kilgour. There must be a settlement between us.”
She looked away from him. She was plainly searching her soul for excuses to postpone that settlement.
“That person who came in, Dicky! I swear I did not arrange any such thing. He is only an iceman. I don't know the man. It was some accident. If the matter hadn't been interrupted! It was going along all right.”
“What's the matter with your intellect? You know it wasn't going along at all! You simply had us chasing shadows. Good God! I ought to have made you tell me what you were planning. Think of it! Think of me waltzing down there like a boob and thinking you had something real to offer.”
“But you frightened her with that jailbird. You should have brought a real clergyman.”
“The man I brought has the power to perform marriages! I would have made a nice spectacle towing a clergyman into that mess, wouldn't I?”
She broke in upon his further speech. She wrung her hands, paltering, pleading, trying to explain, trying more desperately to postpone that settlement he was demanding.
“But, honestly, it did seem to be a good plan, Dicky. I'm her mother. I know her nature. You know how some natures have to be handled! She is so self-centered. She has to be taken by surprise. She has to know that she is making a sacrifice. That is why I arranged it all for Rose Alley and borrowed that house. And I had it all planned out what to say to her at the last moment there.”
“Well, what was this great thing you were going to say?” He glared at her, disgust and suspicion in his eyes.
She flushed. She hesitated, unable to meet his gaze.
“It's no use to tell you now, Dicky. Somehow, now that I come to think it all over, it sounds rather tame. It all did seem so plausible, what I was going to say when I sat down and planned out the thing. And the romance of it—you know even self-centered girls like to feel that a man wants them so much that he gets desperate—and she said once that she would marry you some time—perhaps—and—”
“Oh, you—you—” He broke in and then stopped, lacking words. “What's the use?” he muttered. “You don't even know your own daughter. She has been enduring me because you have been keeping at her. I understand it now. You told me you could hurry it up. You have made me look like a melodrama villain. You have made her hate me. Now own up! Didn't she rave to you after you got home and tell you she hated me? You have nailed me to the cross for ever where she is concerned—now haven't you? Own up.”
“I can win her back, Dicky. Give me a little time.” But she was not able to look at him. “Don't scold me any more. I'm her mother. She will obey her own mother in time. Don't hurt my sensitive nature any more.” She began to weep, twisting her rings on her trembling fingers.
He scowled at her, narrowing his eyes. “You haven't been playing square with me, Mrs. Kilgour.”
“Call me Mother Kilgour, Dicky, just as you always have.”
“I won't stand for any more bluffing, Mrs. Kilgour. Kate has sworn to you that she will never marry me—now hasn't she?”
“But I can talk her around—you can win her back. I'll tell her it was my plan—I'll have courage to tell her later—”
“So you have been laying that crazy idea all to me?”
“But I'll get up courage to tell her some day—and your devotion will win her back—devotion always wins. You can—”
“Mrs. Kilgour, I know you pretty well. I repeat, I know you have always ducked out from under—that's your nature. But here's a thing you can't dodge. You've got to come to time. You know how I love Kate. There isn't any reason why she shouldn't marry me. There's no excuse for her holding me off the way she does. You've got to fix it for me—quick! Understand? This fluff talk about 'devotion' and 'some day' doesn't go. I want action. Now hold on! I don't mean to threaten—I've been square with you till now. Good gad, you don't realize what a price I've paid!”
“And now on top of your other insults you are going to twit me again because I have borrowed five thousand dollars from you. Oh, Dicky, I thought you were more of a gentleman?”
“Mrs. Kilgour, I have simply got to make you understand what I have done for you before you'll wake up and do something for me.”
“I appreciate what you did, Dicky. Honestly, I do. You save me from losing money on my stocks.”
“Where are those stocks?”
She did not look at him. “I have them put away—all safe. They are all right. Just as soon as business is better I will get your money for you, Dicky. You shall have it, every cent.”
“Where are those stocks, I say! Mrs. Kilgour, look at me. Were are they?”
“Why are you so particular about knowing where they are?” Protecting herself, she showed a flicker of resentment.
“Because you must sell and hand me that money—at once.”
“I—I don't believe I can realize on them just now. They are—are down just at present. They—”
“What are the stocks?”
“I don't care to reveal my private business, Richard.”
“It happens to be my business, too. I'm in trouble. I must know. I shall stay here till I find out. You may as well come across.”
“As soon as I can arrange it—I will tell you. Very soon now!”
He snapped himself out of his chair and went across the room to her. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent his face to hers.
“You haven't any stocks, Mrs. Kilgour.”
“No,” she whispered, his eyes dominating her.
“What did you do with that money I loaned you?”
“I paid—a debt.”
“What debt? Answer! This thing must be cleared up—now!”
She began to weep.
“No more hysterics, Mrs. Kilgour. We are now down to cases. Something bad will happen if you don't confide in me.”
Then, cornered, with the impulse of weak natures to seek support from stronger—to appeal to a victor who cannot be eluded—she blurted the truth.
“They got to suspecting me when I was cashier for Dalton & Company. I heard they were going to put experts upon my books, Dicky. I didn't want to go to jail. I would have disgraced Kate. I knew you loved her and would not want her mother to be arrested. I had to have that money. I told you the story about the stocks. So I was saved from being disgraced.”
“Oh, you were?” His eyes flamed so furiously that she turned her gaze from him.
“And now I feel better, for I have confided in you and you're going to be my good and true friend from now on. It will be made up to you, Dicky.”
“What had you done with all that money you took from Dalton & Company?”
“It costs so much to live—and keep up the position I had when Andrew was alive! A woman needs so many things, Richard. I have always been proud. I was obliged to—”
He swore and swung away from her. “Wasted it on dress and jewelry! You turned the trick on one man and put him underground. And I'm the next victim! I knew I was being played for a sucker, but, oh—”
He battered his fists against the wall in pure ecstasy of rage. Then he sat down and put his face in his hands.
The woman clucked sobs which did not ring true.
“I wonder what Kate would say if she knew how I had come to the scratch. She knew her father was a hero. I wonder whether she would think I am one!” he said, after silence had continued for a long time.
“Are you going to tell her?” the mother gasped.
“I love her too much. But, see here! Do you think I picked that five thousand off a rose-bush?”
“You told me your uncle loaned it to you.”
“You think I got it easy—got it for the asking, and that's why you have been loafing on the job,” he said, with bitterness. “Ask my uncle for money? I should say not. He never loosened for anybody yet—not even his relatives. Mrs. Kilgour, I love your daughter so much—I was so anxious to help you—I stole that five thousand from the state treasury. I have been covering it in my accounts for more than a year—hell all the time with plenty of white-hot when the legislative committee has been over the accounts. Some day some blasted fool will wake up enough to see that there's a hole in my figures.”
He put his elbows on his knees and stared at the carpet. The woman's face grew white.
“That's how it stands with me, Mrs. Kilgour. You know you were not square with me at the start. You said you needed the money for only a few weeks—you said you were pinched in a stock deal. You lied to me. You have wasted the money on fine feathers for your back. I have kept still. You can't pay me. I've got to struggle out of the mess as best I can. But, by the eternal gods, there's something coming to me, and that's your daughter. Now are you going to wake up?”
“I'll do everything I can.” Her tone was not convincing, however.
He realized that this woman with the pulpy conscience and the artificial emotions, selfish and a coward, was merely vaguely stirred by his revelation, not spurred by the extent of his sacrifice in her behalf.
“Do what you can? Whine to me like that after I have stolen state's money and am standing under my steal? What if this state tips over politically and they investigate the treasury? I tell you, Mrs. Kilgour, I deserve to have Kate. I'm going to have her. You have got to fix it—and right away.”
“But I can't marry off a girl of twenty as if she were a Chinese slave.” His insistence caused her to display more of her pettish resentment.
“If you can't deliver the goods, Mrs. Kilgour, I shall take a hand in it.”
“How?”
“I'll tell her the story.”
“You wouldn't dare.”
“She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it.”
“But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace.”
That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath.
By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he had sunk in her estimation.
“You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good daughter.”
He got up and stamped on the floor in his passion and swore.
“I appreciate what you did for me—but, really, I didn't ask you to steal money—and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You should not have told me falsehoods.”
The maddening feature of this calm assumption of superiority was the fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.
“There's another way of doing it,” raged the young man, infuriated by this repudiation of obligation. “I'll blow the whole thing about the two of us—and she'll be glad enough to have me after it's all over.”
“You haven't any right to bring all this trouble and disgrace into my family.”
“You know one way of preventing it and you'd better get busy, Mrs. Kilgour,” he advised. “I'm going to give you another chance of keeping your word and paying your debt to me. I want Kate—and I have waited for her long enough.”
He clapped on his hat and hurried away.
He left the mother sprawled on a couch, her ringed hands clutched into her dyed hair. She was still clucking sobs which would not have convinced any unprejudiced hearer that she felt real grief.
When Richard Dodd entered his uncle's offices in the First National block a little later he was in the mood to force his affairs a bit. He enjoyed liberties there which the ordinary caller did not have and he walked into Kate Kilgour's little room without attracting attention or comment.
“I know exactly how you feel about last night, Kate.” He addressed her respectfully and humbly. “I understand that this is no place to discuss the matter. I haven't come here to do so. I apologize for the affair. I'm going to say this to you—I took your mother's advice. She planned the thing and trumped up the errand which called you to that house. I'm afraid she is rather too romantic. I only say this, Kate: a man's love can make him do foolish things. Please talk with your mother when you go home—and take her advice. If you do, it will be better for all of us.” He trembled with the restraint he had put upon himself. “You can see that I have been punished, Kate. I am a different man—you ought to be able to see it. Awful trouble has come to me. I need your love to help me through it.”
She gazed at him with level, cold eyes.
“You don't understand. I can't explain, dear! But I'm telling you the truth. Kate, if you don't forget that folly I was guilty of last night and be to me what you have been—if you don't marry me very soon you will be sorry.”
“Are you threatening me, Richard?”
“No, I didn't mean it to sound like that. But I know that with your appreciation of what sacrifice means you will be very unhappy if you toss me away and then find out certain things.”
“This is not the time for riddles, Richard. What do you mean?”
“I have said all I can say.”
“I do not love you well enough to be your wife. I have not meant to play the coquette. I have not known myself. You and my mother—Oh, why rehearse? You know the story. You have understood that my love for you was not what you should have. We may as well end it here and now, Richard. I will forget last night. I will forget all the rest—for it is ended!”
“It cannot be ended,” he retorted. “Understand! It cannot be ended. I am trying to hold myself together, Kate. Don't provoke me. I call on you to keep your promise. No other man shall have you.” He leaned close. “Do you love any other man?”
She looked up at him and spoke slowly and gravely. “I do not think I do, Richard.”
He scowled at her. “You don't think you do! What in the name of Judas do you mean by a remark like that?”
“It's because I'm trying to tell the truth,” she returned, with simple earnestness.
“This is a sort of new mood you're in?” he persisted.
“Yes.”
He hesitated. He started to speak and then was silent for a long time. “Damnation! I won't insult you!” he blurted at last.
“I hope not, Richard.”
“It's preposterous!”
“What is preposterous?” Her tone was calm.
“I saw you look at a man last evening.”
“Very well!”
“I have seen women look at me like that in my life.”
“I was not conscious that I looked at any man in any especial manner.”
“You couldn't see yourself. Perhaps you did not realize that you looked at that man with any meaning in your eyes. But the women who looked at me as you looked at him told me that they loved me. I am talking it right out! But if I should hint that you're in love with a tramp I should insult you. I am crazy, that's all. My troubles are affecting my mind. Forgive me, Kate.”
“You are, of course, referring to the young man who broke in on our prospective business last evening.” There was just a touch of contempt in her demeanor; but her air was coldly business-like; sitting there at her desk she held him, physically and mentally, at arm's-length. Her poise was sure. It seemed perfectly natural for her to be discussing a young man in an impersonal manner.
“I am referring to that low-lived vagrant we met on the road—that iceman—that—well, I don't know what he is except that the devil seems to be kicking him under my feet to trip me. Kate, Kate, it's too ridiculous to talk about—that wretch!”
“Do you mean by that remark that I am taking any interest in that young man outside of mere curiosity?”
“I don't know why you should have any curiosity about a tramp.”
“You are not a good student of physiognomy, Richard.”
“So you have been studying him, have you? You went away with him and left me. What did he say to you? Where did he leave you? I haven't dared to think about your going away with him. I excused it because you were angry—so angry you'd even pick up a tramp for an escort. But what interest do you take in that renegade?” His tones were acrid with jealousy.
“I did not find him a renegade. I found him a mystery, Richard. And I hope that some day I will know what the mystery is.”
“Are you trying to drive me mad?”
“I am merely chatting along in order to keep you off a topic which is distressing. I heard that your uncle intended to have the man investigated after he came into the office here and made that brave stand. I happened to hear the talk the young man made. Perhaps that accounts for my curiosity. Did your uncle find out much about the man?”
“I don't know what he found out,” declared Dodd, rapidly losing control of himself. “But I propose to find out for myself.”
“Please do, Richard,” said the girl, ingenuously and earnestly. She seemed to be losing some of the hauteur she had shown at the first of their meeting.
“I'll find out enough to put him in jail, where he probably belongs. I'm not going to insult you, Kate, by any more talk about a tramp. You can't shift me from the main topic. Go home and talk with your mother, as I have told you. We are going to be married!”
“Richard, our affair is ended.”
“Then who is the man?”
“There is no man.”
“If you say that and mean it, then you don't know women as well as I know them. You don't know even yourself!” he declared. “I want to say to you, Kate, that we are all walking on mighty thin ice. The sooner you and I take hold of hands and get safely ashore—just you and I—the better it will be. Just let your curiosity about other men fall asleep. I tell you again, go home and talk with your mother.”
He bowed, reached his hand to touch hers, but refrained when she turned suddenly to her desk and resumed her work.
Young Dodd hurried out of the building without attempting to see his uncle, and cooled his head and his passion and soothed his physical discomfort by a headlong dash in his car back to the state's capital city.
The girl took her courage in her hands and asked Mr. Peter Briggs, in as matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, whether he did not want any record copy made of his notes in regard to that person who had bearded Colonel Dodd. But Mr. Briggs informed her that the matter was not of sufficient importance.
“The fellow is merely a cheap, loafing sort—here to-day, there to-morrow,” said Briggs. “I investigated him thoroughly.”
Until then Miss Kilgour had always had a high opinion of Peter Briggs's acumen. She promptly revised that estimate, reflecting that age is bound to dull a person's senses and cloud his judgment.
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